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Used by courtesy of Philadelphia Commercial Museum 


Great Falls of the Potomac River 


Frontispiece 











OUR CONTINENT 


AND ITS NEIGHBORS 
AN AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY 


BY 

CHARLES E. NEVILLE 

' 

Supervising Principal, Northwest Public School, 
Philadelphia 



HINDS, HAYDEN & ELDREDGE, Inc. 
NEW YORK CHICAGO PHILADELPHIA 









Copyright, 1924 

HINDS, HAYDEN & ELDREDGE, Inc. 


FEB 2574 


Cl A 7 7 812'5 

/I ^ ~ 


/ 


PREFACE 


The purposes of this little book are, first, to give Ele¬ 
mentary pupils the essential geographical facts and principles 
necessary for an intelligent understanding of life on 
“Our Continent”; second, to present these facts as much 
as possible by maps and pictures, accompanied by only the 
smallest necessary amount of text; third, to put the text 
into English that will be clearly understood by the average 
pupil; fourth to emphasize the influence of geographical 
controls on human life and the fact that much of human 
activity is man’s response to his geographical environment. 
The plan of treatment by geographical regions has been 
followed for the most part, but departed from slightly in the 
case of our North American neighbors for the sake of con¬ 
venient nomenclature for the divisions. 

Acknowledgment is due the Commercial Museum of 
Philadelphia for permission to use a number of excellent 
illustrations. 

C. E. N. 

Philadelphia, Aug., 1923. 



CONTENTS 


PART I.—THE UNITED STATES 

Chapter Page 

I. The New England Region. 1 

II. The Atlantic Coast Plain. 13 

III. The Appalachian Highland. 25 

IV. The Great Central Plain. 32 

V. The Western Highland. 53 

PART II.—THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 

VI. Alaska and Canada. 67 

VII. Mexico, Central America and the Canal Zone. 79 

VIII. The West Indies, Hawaii, and the Philippines. 91 

PART III.—SOUTH AMERICA 

IX. Physical Features and Regions of South America.... 99 

X. The Andes Highland Region. 102 

XI. The Orinoco Valley Region. 109 

XII. The Amazon River Region. 112 

XIII. The LaPlata River Region. 116 

XIV. The Eastern Highland Region of South America. 121 

XV. Comparison of South America with North America. . 125 

MAPS 

United States. 2-3 

Fisheries of the Atlantic Coast. 7 

World Areas of Cotton Production. 24 

vi 


















CONTENTS 


vii 
Page 

Coal and Iron Distribution. 29 

World Areas of Wheat Production. 33 

Fisheries of the Pacific Coast.-. 60 

Alaska. 68 

Mexico. 81 

North America. 126 

South America. 127 

Rainfall Map of United States. 128 

Rainfall Map of World. 129 














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PART I.—THE UNITED STATES 


CHAPTER I 

THE NEW ENGLAND REGION 

Over three hundred years ago a party of English people 
were driven out of their course over the Atlantic Ocean by 
a storm. It was in December and the weather was bitterly 
cold. They were glad to make a landing on the nearest 
shore. It was a rough, rocky shore, beaten by the sea and 
edged with ice. The people on the “Mayflower” found 
that rough and cruel as the shore seemed, it was broken up 
by a great number of bays, sheltered from the Atlantic 
storms by hills which here came down to the shore line. 
They landed in one of these safe harbors and made their 
little settlement. Because they came from England this 
region was named New England. 

If we look at the map of the United States we will find 
New England in the northeastern corner of the map. If 
we study the coast line of the group of six states, Maine, 
New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 
Connecticut, now included in the New England region, 
we will see that the Pilgrims could have found many safe 
harbors. The whole coast is so broken by bays and inlets 
that at almost any spot along the Atlantic in this section 
a storm-tossed ship could find a safe landing place if she 
could pass the dangerous rocks at the entrances. 



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Coast 


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Pacific 


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4 


THE UNITED STATES 


There is an interesting story about why this coast is so 
broken. First, ages ago when the crust of the earth was 
cooling, many huge wrinkles or ridges were thrown up 
here. As they cooled gradually, they were worn down 
by the action of the storms and the ice, and took their 
present shape, rounded, smooth, low mountains. But in 
this part of North America these old mountains come very 
close to the edge of the sea. A little while after these moun¬ 
tains were thrown up, a great sheet of ice came down from 
the North Polar region and covered all of the northern part 
of our continent. This sheet of ice wore off the hard rock 
on the tops of the mountains, and cut away the strips of 
softer rock, making valleys between the mountains. Then 
the earth’s crust began to change its shape again so that 
the land along what we now call the New England coast 
began to sink. As the Valley-sunk lower and lower the sea 
rushed in, drowning the valley and making what we call 
bays or harbors. These harbors are one of the most 
important influences on the lives of the people of New 
England. Into many of these bays there are rivers flowing. 
These rivers have their sources in the mountains which are 
farther from the sea. They flow down the valleys, fed by 
hundreds of small brooks and creeks, growing larger and 
larger. At last they come to the drowned part of their 
valleys and pour their waters into the Atlantic Ocean. 

Can you find on your map the Connecticut River, the 
Merrimac River, the Aroostook River, the Kennebec River? 
These are some of the largest, but there are very many 
rivers in the New England region. These rivers are different 
from those in most of the other parts of North America. 
The mountains come so close to the sea that even the longest 
New England rivers are short compared with great streams 
like the Mississippi, the Missouri or the Ohio. The valleys 
are narrow in many places and the mountain sides steep, 


THE NEW ENGLAND REGION 


5 


so that these rivers of New England usually have very 
swift currents. Then because they are swift they wear 
away the softer rocks very fast, making ledges and steps 
from the harder rocks over which the rivers go tumbling 
and roaring in a great many waterfalls. These waterfalls 
were important to the early settlers of New England, who 
raised corn and wheat on the few fertile fields in the val¬ 
leys. The grain must be ground into meal or flour before 
it could be used for food. So where the waterfall tumbled 
over the rocks with such force a waterwheel was placed to 
turn the millstones in a grist mill. The farmers brought 



A New England Factory 


their grain to the grist mill to have it ground. While they 
waited they had time to buy other goods that they needed. 
Stores were built near the mills and usually a little town 
grew up about the mill at the waterfall. This is the reason 
that to-day many of the great manufacturing cities of the 
New England region are to be found along the rivers at the 
places where the waterfalls used to turn the old grist mills. 
Most of the old wooden waterwheels have fallen to ruins, 
but in their places are wheels much larger, made of metal, 
and these wheels, instead of turning millstones, turn great 
machines which we call dynamos. These dynamos make 
electricity. The electric current from these immense 




♦THE UNITED STATES 


dynamos not only turns the machinery in the great fac¬ 
tories of the modern New England cities, but it lights their 
streets, homes and other buildings and runs their street 
cars as well. Coal is so scarce and expensive in New 
England that her manufacturing cities are depending more 
and more on the electric power furnished by the waterfalls. 
This power is sometimes called white coal. 

The farmers who lived in the valleys found that along 
the rivers there were strips of fertile soil, though the moun¬ 
tains cover nearly all of the surface of this section, as you can 
see by looking at the map. The soil on the mountain sides 
is very thin and poor because it is continually washed into the 
valley by the storms and the streams. So when the popu¬ 
lation of this section grew to a great size it was necessary for 
most of the people to find some other way to make a living 
besides farming. The early settlers soon discovered that the 
rivers and the sea along the New England shore were full 
of fine fish. Many hundreds of the people of this section 
are engaged in some industry depending on fishing. The 
city of Gloucester, Massachusetts, is almost entirely made 
up of fishermen, men employed in salting, packing and 
shipping fish to other places, and those employed in the 
factories which make oil and glue from the fish. Find 
Gloucester on the map of New England. There are several 
other cities and towns along the coast where fishing is a 
very important industry, but Gloucester is the chief 
of these. 

The climate of New England is cool, because of its dis¬ 
tance from the Equator, the height of the land in this 
region, and the cold current that comes down from Baffin 
Bay. The winters are very long and severe with much 
snow, and the summers, while warm, are short. The New 
England poet Whittier has given us a beautiful picture 
of New England country life in the winter in his poem 


THE NEW ENGLAND REGION 


7 


“Snow Bound.” This climate with its changes from heat 
to cold makes people active and energetic in their bodies 
and keen and resourceful in their minds. The people of 
New England show the effect of the climate. It is there 



that the greatest group of American writers were born and 
lived. Lowell, Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Holmes and 
others have given more to American literature than any 
other group or section in the country. Then the Yankees, 





8 


THE UNITED STATES 


as the New Englanders are nicknamed, have always been 
famous for their inventions. It was a New England boy, 
Eli Whitney, who showed the Southern cotton planters 
how to take the seeds out of their cotton. His invention 
of the cotton gin made the cotton industry in the South 
grow to such great proportions that it is now one of the 



leading industries of the world. The rugged mountains, 
barren soil and cold climate of this section have made its 
people industrious and frugal, so that the thrift of the New 
Englander has become a proverb. 

The mountain sides of New England have always been 
covered with forests and from early times to the present, 
lumbering has been one of the very important industries 
of this section. The two larger mountain regions, White 










THE NEW ENGLAND REGION 


9 

Mountains and Green Mountains (see map), and the great 
forests of northern Maine still furnish a large amount of 
lumber. In recent years the cut-over sections of these 
forests have been replanted, with the result that the supply 
of trees, which was becoming rapidly exhausted, is now being 
replenished. By careful cutting of the trees which have 
reached their full growth and saving of the small trees, a 
forest tract may be made to yield a crop of lumber every 
twenty years. 

Another industry that has grown up in connection with 
the lumbering is that of paper making. Beside many of the 



Log jam in the Penobscot River 


rivers of Maine there are immense paper mills. When the 
ice melts in the spring and the winter’s cutting of logs 
floats down the rivers, many of them are stopped at these 
mills to be ground into pulp and made into paper. It may 
be that the paper in the book you are reading, or in the 
newspaper that is left at your home each day, was made 
from trees once growing beside the Kennebec or some other 
river in Maine. 

In the forests of the Green Mountains and their foothills 
in Vermont there are large groves of maple trees of the kind 




10 


THE UNITED STATES 


known as sugar maples. In the early spring the men bore 
holes into these trees, putting small tubes into the holes, 
and allow the sweet sap to run out into buckets. In the 
early days each family made its own maple sugar and 
maple syrup. The “boiling down” of the sap in the great 
kettles over an open fire near the cabin was one of the 
happiest times in the year for the New England farm boy. 



A grove of sugar maples 


The families of some of the farmers and woodmen of Ver¬ 
mont still do this, but most of the sap is now sent to the 
sugar mills. Here it is made into cakes of maple sugar or 
cans of maple syrup for us to eat with our griddle cakes on 
winter mornings. 

With a coast line made up of so many good harbors, 
with rivers reaching into the interior for transportation, 
and with so much water power, it is no wonder that New 







THE NEW ENGLAND REGION 


11 


England has grown to be one of our greatest commercial 
and manufacturing sections. Boston is one of the important 
commercial cities of America. Into its harbor come ships 
from all over the world bringing their various products 
to its markets. Its great wharves are well worth seeing. 
It has a large fishing industry, and a visit to “Fish Pier” 
in the early morning when the fishing boats are unload- 



Waltham watch factory 


ing will never be forgotten. Boston is also the principal 
leather market of America. Lynn, of the cities near Boston, 
is famous for its shoe manufacturing. The city of Provi¬ 
dence, Rhode Island, is the jewelry center of America. 
Waterbury, Connecticut, is the brass manufacturing center. 
Near Boston are two of the largest watch factories in the 
world. Scattered all over New England are numerous 
textile mills, where cotton and wool are spun and woven 
into cloth. This may seem strange when we remember 
that both cotton and wool have to be brought to New 





n 


THE UNITED STATES 


England from other places. But the moist climate of this 
region is exactly suited to textile manufacturing. A dry 
climate makes threads too brittle and they break easily 
while being woven. The damp east winds blowing from the 
Atlantic Ocean keep the air in New England always moist. 
Then we have already learned about the water power and 
other facilities for manufacturing possessed by the New 
England States, so we may expect to find them full of manu¬ 
facturing plants of every description. 

The beautiful bays and rocky islands along the shores 
of New England, with the pine forested hills coming down 
to the shore, the excellent bathing and boating on the bays, 
the fish that swarm in the waters along the coast, all call 
to the people of the cities to spend the summer in this 
delightful vacation country. Further inland we have the 
ranges of the White and the Green Mountains topped by 
the bare peak of Mount Washington. These are another 
attraction for those who want rest or health or pleasure 
in the summer. . So throughout New England there have 
f sprung up hundreds of summer hotels which are filled to 
| overflowing during most of the hot summer months. This 
Tourist business^ as it is called, has grown to be a very 
important industry of the people of what is frequently called 
in the travel catalogues, “America’s Vacation Land.” 


CHAPTER II 


THE ATLANTIC COAST PLAIN 

If we look at the map we shall see along the eastern 
side of North America a system of mountain ranges running 
almost parallel with the coast but gradually sloping away 
toward the west, so that from New York to Florida the 
coast plain between the mountains and the sea grows wider 
and wider. This plain or slope includes parts of two groups 
of states: the Middle Atlantic group, composed of New 
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland 
and Virginia, and the South Atlantic group, composed of 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. 
We may also include the Gulf States in this plain, for while 
they border on the Gulf of Mexico instead of the Atlantic 
Ocean itself, their geographical conditions are very much 
like those of the South Atlantic States. 

The people who settled the northern part of this Atlantic 
plain, the Dutch in New York, and the Swedes and English 
Quakers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, were much like 
the Pilgrims of New England in many of their habits. 
They were hard-working, thrifty people who knew how 
to till the earth. They found here a soft, loose, fertile soil 
with a climate not nearly so cold as that of New England; 
with plenty of rainfall, and summer long enough to raise 
many different crops. These are the conditions we will 
find in all coastal plains throughout the world. The climate 
will differ if the coastal plain is near the equator or far from 
it, but the soft, loose, fertile soil with plenty of moisture 

13 


14 


THE UNITED STATES 


is sure to be found in any Coastal Plain. These conditions 
naturally lead people to agricultural work and the settlers 
of the Atlantic coastal plain of our continent were no excep¬ 
tion to this rule. They succeeded so well that to-day 
Lancaster County in Pennsylvania is one of the richest 
agricultural counties in the world. The large fruit farms 
in New Jersey and the truck farms surrounding New York 
City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington prove that 
almost any kind of farm produce may be raised in abund- 



Tobacco field in Lancaster County, Pa. 


ance in this favorable soil and climate of the Atlantic Coastal 
Plain. But agriculture is not the only occupation here. 
As we read before, the people of the Middle Atlantic group 
of States were and are very much like those of New England. 
As their numbers grew they turned their attention to com¬ 
merce and manufacturing. The coast line of this region, 
as you may see from the map, is very smooth and regular 
compared to that of New England. Here and there, where 
some larger river pours into the ocean, there is a bay which 
makes a good harbor. In this middle section, New York 
Bay, where the Hudson River joins the sea, the Delaware 




THE ATLANTIC COAST PLAIN 


15 


Bay and River, and the Chesapeake Bay are the best 
harbors. At these points some of our finest seaports 
have grown up. New York City, the largest city in the 
world to-day, has every advantage to make [it what it 
is, the big center of the world’s trade. Its harbor is 
naturally a good one, protected by Nature’s breakwater, 
the long arm of Sandy Hook. This harbor has been still 
further improved by artificial means. The Hudson River 
makes a natural highway for goods of all kinds to be brought 



New Jersey fruit and truck farm 


to New York from the interior of what is known as the 
Empire State. The Erie Canal, connecting the Hudson 
with the Great Lakes, opens up still more trade. Then the 
railroads following the valleys of the Hudson and Mohawk 
rivers, and due west through Philadelphia and Pittsburg, 
help still further to make New York the gateway of our 
continent, through which the ships and the trade of all 
the world enter. Philadelphia, the third city in size and 
importance on our continent, has many natural advantages, 





16 


THE UNITED STATES 



but lacks the near¬ 
ness to the sea which 
makes possible the 
immense foreign trade 
of New York. Phila¬ 
delphia as a manufac¬ 
turing city is almost the 
equal of her larger sister 
and in some ways even 
greater. As you have 
already learned Phila¬ 
delphia is one of the 
,8 world’s leading textile 
*8 cities and the center 

O # 

■5 of sugar refining. It is 
I the headquarters of the 
•g Pennsylvania Railroad, 
P* the world’s longest rail- 
J way system. Its area 
•g is not confined by rivers 
.8 or bays as in the case 
of New York and in 
w consequence of being 
able to expand it has 
developed homes for 
its people till it has 
become known as the 
“City of Homes.” Bal¬ 
timore, on the Chesa¬ 
peake Bay, is an im¬ 
portant commercial city 
and the center of the 
oyster dredging indus¬ 
try. Washington, the 





THE ATLANTIC COAST PLAIN 


17 


capital of our country, is also located in this middle sec¬ 
tion of the coastal plain. Find these cities on your map. 

In the southern parts of the Atlantic Plain the 
same conditions of soil and moisture are found. The 
summers are longer and warmer and the winters shorter 
and milder so that some crops can be raised here that 
would not grow in the Middle States or in New England. 
The original settlers of this region, who came to James¬ 
town over three hundred years ago, were quite different 
from those of New England and the Middle States. They 



Franklin sugar refinery, Philadelphia 


were Englishmen of the upper social classes. Nobility 
and gentry they were called at that time. They were 
unused to hard work of any kind. In southern Virginia 
and the coast region south of it they found rich soil and a 
mild climate where most plants would grow without much 
labor. They soon discovered that tobacco would grow 
easily and could be used as money. So they began to plant 
tobacco in large quantities. Then they discovered that 
cotton was another crop that would grow well in this region. 
But the cotton industry of the South did not get a real 
start till the invention of the cotton gin. From that time 
on the cotton industry grew until the whole Southern 





18 


THE UNITED STATES 



section of our country was like one great cotton planta¬ 
tion. Very little else was grown except just enough veg¬ 
etables for the use of the planters and their families. 
The whole section was so dependent on cotton that in a 
good cotton year every one would be rich, but if the 
cotton failed it was a disaster. For many years no at¬ 
tempt was made in the South to manufacture cotton into 


Sorting oysters in Chesapeake Bay 

doth. The bales of cotton were sent to England or to the 
great cotton mills of New England and there spun and 
woven into cloth, some of which was sent back to the cities 
of the South to be sold to the very people who raised it. 
Within the last ten years, however, many cotton cloth 
factories have been started in the South. There are sev¬ 
eral large cities, all of which do a great deal of cotton 








THE ATLANTIC COAST PLAIN 


19 


manufacturing. Raleigh, North Carolina; Columbia, South 
Carolina; Augusta, Georgia; and Montgomery, Alabama, 
are the chief of these. 

If we drew a line on the map through these four cities 
we should find that it ran parallel with the mountains and 
just along the edge of the foothill region known as the 
Piedmont Plateau. Why should these large manufacturing 



Collecting turpentine 


cities and many smaller ones be located on such a line? 
This line is at the point where the rivers of the coast plain, 
pouring down from the mountains, tumble over the edge 
of the hard rocks into the soft, loose soil of the coastal plain. 
At every such spot is a waterfall and around these water¬ 
falls cities have grown up just as we saw them in New 
England. The line along which these cities are located is 
known as the “Fall Line.” 






20 


THE UNITED STATES 


The hilly plateau country between this Fall Line and the 
mountains is covered with a forest, of yellow pine trees. 
Some lumbering is carried on in this forest but the most 
important products of these trees are resin and turpentine, 
which are much used in medicines, paints and varnishes. 
The turpentine, which is the sap of the yellow pine tree, is 
obtained by tapping or cutting a hole into the tree and 
putting in a little tube or gutter through which the sap 



A Florida orange grove 


flows into a bucket. Of what New England industry does 
this remind you? 

There are other industries in this region too. In Georgia 
great groves of pecan trees have been planted and are giving 
good crops of pecan nuts. Georgia is also famous for its 
peaches. In Virginia many whole farms are given over to 
raising peanuts. Florida’s orange groves and other fruits 
are well known to every one. In Florida and in many 
parts of Georgia and the Carolinas and Virginia there are 
large truck farms which raise vegetables to be sent to the 
great cities. 



THE ATLANTIC COAST PLAIN 


21 


When you have a chance look at the names on the cars 
of a freight train to see if you can find one labeled “Fruit 
Grower’s Express.” You will find one in almost any freight 
train during the late autumn, winter and early spring. 
That car and thousands like it are carrying to New York, 
Philadelphia and the other northern cities, oranges, grape 
fruit, lemons, fresh berries and fresh vegetables, so that 
in the middle of winter we may have fresh fruit and vege¬ 
tables on our tables. 



Gathering sugar cane in Louisiana 


In southern Louisiana and along the Mississippi River 
are many plantations where sugar cane is raised. A few 
years ago all of this cane was sent to Baltimore or Phila¬ 
delphia to be refined into sugar. Now there are several very 
large sugar refineries in New Orleans and the neighboring 
towns of Louisiana. 

In the large town of Birmingham, Alabama, a great steel¬ 
making industry has grown up. There are valuable iron 
mines in this state and Birmingham has such an important 
place in the steel industry that it is sometimes called the 
Pittsburg of the South. 




22 


THE UNITED STATES 


We must not forget that the petroleum wells of Texas 
are furnishing the world with an immense amount of 
petroleum nor that the dry lands of western Texas, which 
are fitted for pasture only, give us a very large supply of 
cattle for meat. 

The cotton and other surplus products of the South 
are sent out through a number of ports located on the 
coast at the mouths of rivers or on bays. The more 



Picking cotton in the South 


important of these are New Orleans, Wilmington, Charleston, 
Savannah, Jacksonville, Mobile, Galveston. New Orleans, 
the greatest port of the South, is located on the Mississippi 
River near its mouth. The land on which the city is built 
is lower than the river and the water must be kept in the 
river by high banks of earth and masonry called “levees.” 

Memphis, further up the Mississippi River, and Nash¬ 
ville, Tennessee, are both cities of some importance. 

Find these cities on your map. 




THE ATLANTIC COAST PLAIN 


23 


A number of these cities are called cotton ports because 
the chief export from them is cotton. If you could visit 
the wharves at Galveston, New Orleans, Memphis, Savannah 
or Charleston you would find them piled high with bales 
of cotton waiting to be put on board ships to sail all over 
the world. 

Another important factor in the cotton industry is the 
making of cotton-seed oil. As you have learned, the seeds 



Loading a vessel at a cotton port 


of the cotton are all taken out by means of the machine 
called the cotton gin. For a long time these seeds were 
thrown away as waste. Now they are taken to a press and 
squeezed until all the oil is pressed out of them. This oil 
is refined and the clearer part sold as salad oil, while the 
thicker part is pressed into a substance which looks like 
lard and is sold to be used for cooking. The mass of hulls 
and other parts of the seeds left in the press is sold for cattle 
feed under the name of “oil cake.” 







24 


THE UNITED STATES 


Many people from the cities go north to New England 
to escape the heat of the summer, and many of the people 
of the North want to escape the cold of the Northern 
winter. Southern Florida is so near the equator that it 
has an almost tropical climate with two seasons, a wet 
season when we are having summer and a dry season when 



The great world areas of cotton production 


we are having winter. All along the Atlantic and Gulf 
Coasts of this narrow peninsula there are big hotels to 
which thousands of people go from the North every winter 
to enjoy sea bathing, fishing, and out-door life when the 
Middle States and New England are covered by their 
winter blanket of snow and ice. 




CHAPTER III 


THE APPALACHIAN HIGHLAND 

Stretching across the United States from northeast 
to southwest, between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the 
Great Central Plain, is a system of mountain ranges. 
These ranges are of the old, smooth, forest-covered kind 



Bituminous coal mining 


that we saw in New England. They are known as the 
Appalachian or Eastern Highland, although in different 
parts of the system the separate ranges are given different 
names, Blue Mountains, Blue Ridge, Cumberland Moun¬ 
tain's, Allegheny Mountains. We must remember, however, 
that these ranges are all parts of one great mountain 
system. 


25 



THE UNITED STATES 


To the early settlers of the thirteen colonies these moun¬ 
tains stretched like a great wall separating them from 
whatever country lay beyond their ridges. Even in 
Thomas Jefferson’s administration, at the beginning of 
the Nineteenth Century, people said the President was 
foolish and wasteful to spend money to buy the Louisiana 
country, as the people would never be able to cross that 



City of Pittsburg 


mountain wall to settle in the region beyond. Those 
people and the hunters and pioneers who made their way 
with Daniel Boone along the Wilderness Trail through 
the Cumberland Gap never dreamed that in that mountain 
country lay hidden some of the greatest wealth of the 
continent. They knew it merely as a savage forest region, 
filled with wild beasts and wilder Indians, which shut them 
off from the beautiful fertile valleys and plains to the west. 






THE APPALACHIAN HIGHLAND 


27 


To-day from those same mountains we draw a large 
supply of lumber for building purposes, of wood pulp for 
paper making, and of turpentine for the paint and varnish 
trade. The anthracite or hard coal mines on the eastern 
slopes of these mountains in Pennsylvania are the richest 
on the continent. The bituminous or soft coal mines on 
the western slopes in Pennsylvania and West Virginia 



A forest of oil derricks 


furnish the fuel to make steam for thousands of factories 
and locomotives. The iron mines of the western slope have 
made Pittsburg the important center of iron and steel manu¬ 
facturing for North America, and Pittsburg steel products 
go all over the world. In the southern part of the moun¬ 
tains rich mines of coal and iron ore have been discovered, 
making it possible to develop ^teel manufacturing in Bir¬ 
mingham, Alabama. 




28 


THE UNITED STATES 


There are other fuel materials in these mountains. On 
the western side of the ranges in Pennsylvania and West 
Virginia extending over the boundary into Ohio, we will 
find in some places great forests of derricks. These are 
erected over oil wells from which comes the petroleum 
which is now so important to the world. Without petro¬ 
leum we should have no gasoline for automobiles, airplanes 
or motor boats; no fuel oil for our great ocean liners and 
locomotives; no mineral oils for medical uses; no coal tar 
dyes; nor many other things that have become necessities 
in this twentieth century. The petroleum fields of western 



The Horseshoe Curve 


Pennsylvania were the first to be discovered and although 
the supply of petroleum there is rapidly growing less these 
fields still furnish a large share of this world necessity. 

In the same region with the petroleum there is found 
another mineral product known as natural gas. This gas 
is very much like the illuminating gas with which we cook 
and in some places light our homes. But the ordinary 
illuminating gas is made from coal while natural gas was 
made by nature and stored up in pockets deep in the 
mountains ready to be piped into our houses. Many of 
the smaller cities of this region use natural gas entirely for 
cooking and lighting. E*en the great city of Pittsburg 
uses a large quantity of it for these purposes. 









THE APPALACHIAN HIGHLAND 


29 


With the growth of railroads and the development of 
engineering knowledge and skill the mountain barrier no 
longer interferes with travel to the west. One can enter a 
railway train at New York or Philadelphia in the afternoon 
and be in Chicago in time for dinner the next evening. 
In making this trip one would scarcely know that the 
train was crossing a mountain system. There have been 
some remarkable pieces of work done by engineers to make 
possible this smooth, easy crossing of the mountains. One 



Coal and iron distribution 


of these is the beautiful Horseshoe Curve on the Pennsyl¬ 
vania Railroad near Altoona, Pennsylvania. Here there 
is a deep gorge in the mountains too wide and deep to be 
safely crossed by a bridge. The railroad builders cut a 
shelf in the side of the mountains right around the edge of 
the gorge and laid their tracks on this shelf in the form of a 
horseshoe. It is one of the most beautiful places on the 
railroad between the East and Chicago. Another unusual 
piece of railroad work is the great Hoosac Tunnel under 
the Berkshire Hills in Western Massachusetts. These are 
















30 


THE UNITED STATES 


new and easy ways of crossing the mountains when com¬ 
pared to the old method of traveling on horseback or in 
wagons over the rough, steep roads through the gaps. 
They show how men, by their scientific inventions, have 
conquered many of the natural difficulties of the earth’s 
surface. 

Scattered through these mountains from New England 
to North Carolina are summer resorts where people go 



tot mi 


Capitol Building at Washington 


from the overheated cities in the lowlands to breathe the 
cool, pine-scented air of the mountains, and to rest and 
build up their health for their next season’s work. Some 
of these are the White Mountain region in New Hampshire, 
the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains in New York, the 
Pocono region of Pennsylvania and the North Carolina 
Mountains near Asheville. 

Where the Indians had their camps and the bears and 







THE APPALACHIAN HIGHLAND 


31 


panthers their dens in the earlier days, there are now busy 
towns. In Pennsylvania, Williamsport, a lumber center, 
Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in the anthracite coal regions, 
and Oil City in the petroleum country on the western slopes, 
are among the largest of these towns. In West Virginia, 
Charleston and Wheeling are important mountain towns. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN 

If you were to take a ride out into the country around 
Philadelphia you would soon find yourself among farms. 
If it were summer you would see fields of potatoes, sweet 
corn, cabbage, beans, and gardens containing nearly every 
kind of vegetables. You would find the country beautiful. 
The little rolling hills would be covered with green; orchards 
of peaches, apples, pears and other fruit trees would be cov¬ 
ered with blossoms or loaded with the ripening fruit and 
here and there freshly plowed fields would look brown and 
moist. In some of the meadows or valleys you would 
see fields of corn much taller, thicker and darker green 
than the sweet corn. These fields are of the yellow corn or 
maize which is one of the most distinctive American crops. 
It is also probably the most valuable crop in money that is 
raised in America. The ripened grains of this corn are 
ground into meal which is used for food for people and for 
horses, cattle and poultry. The smaller ears are used for 
food for hogs. The stalks are chopped and stored away 
in great towers called silos, or piled in stacks and dried to 
be fed to the farm animals in the winter when there is no 
pasture. 

Besides corn meal the ears of corn yield many other 
forms of food for people. Corn is full of starch. This 
is extracted and packed and sold to make corn starch pud¬ 
dings. Corn is also very sweet and very oily. The grains 
are pressed and from the oil thus obtained is made salad 

32 


THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN 


33 


oil. From what product of the Coastal Plain did we obtain 
salad oil? The sweet syrup from certain kinds of corn is put 
in cans and sold to be used in the same ways as maple syrup. 

On some of the hillsides you would see little fields of 
what looks like very tall grass. When the wind blows over 
these fields the tall stalks bend and sway, making the 
field look like waves on the ocean. These are wheat 
fields. The grain of this wheat is ground into flour from 
which our bread is made. The farmers in Pennsylvania 
prepare the fields for the seed wheat in the autumn. The 



The great world areas of wheat production 


ground is plowed and then carefully worked over with 
harrows until all the lumps or clods are broken up. Then 
the seed is sown with a machine called a drill. The seed 
sprouts and begins to grow, looking like coarse grass as it 
comes through the ground. Then comes the winter, and 
during the cold weather the young wheat cannot grow. 
It does not die like grass and flowers, but seems to stand 
still waiting for the warm rain and sunshine of spring. 
Then it grows very fast, soon becoming tall and strong, 
and by the time that our school term is over it has changed 
from its green color to a beautiful golden yellow and is ripe 
and ready to be harvested. 




THE UNITED STATES 


If you want to see more of these two interesting plants, 
corn and wheat, we must climb the blue wall of the Appala¬ 
chian Mountains and go down on the other side into the 
Great Central Plain. Here we shall find the country very 
different from what we are used to. Instead of the rolling 
hills and valleys among which we can see only a little dis- 



Where the tall corn grows 


tance, we shall find a wide flat land over which we can 
look for miles and miles in every direction. The soil is 
heavier and darker than that on our Pennsylvania hill¬ 
sides. The farmer in Pennsylvania who has a farm of one 
hundred acres feels that it is very large, but here in the 
prairie country we find farms of many times one hundred 
acres. As we go farther west many farms contain several 
thousand acres of land. In the states of Ohio, Indiana, 




THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN 


35 


Illinois, and Iowa, which are called the corn belt states, 
we may ride for hours through fields of tall corn which 
stretch without any end for miles. In the meadow lands 
we may see herds of fat cattle and thousands of hogs, for 
the corn is used not only to feed people but to fatten cattle 
and hogs, which in their turn are sent to Chicago and other 
cities to be turned into meat for us to eat. 

There are some large wheat fields here too, but if we 
want to see the real wheat country we must travel still 
farther west through the great plains into the States of 
Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota. 
Here we may ride for a day or two looking out of our car 
windows on what seems to be a rolling sea of light green 
or rich golden yellow. These are the wheat farms of the 
United States where much of the wheat grows to be made 
into the world’s bread. 

We have seen how the Pennsylvania farmer plants his 
wheat. When it is ripe he cuts it with a reaping machine 
drawn by two or three horses and then stores it in his 
barns or in stacks on the outside to wait until it is ready 
to be threshed, to separate the grain from the straw and 
chaff. But the wheat farmer of the great plains must use 
different methods. First the climate out here is very 
different from that of our Eastern States. The same flat 
country stretches away to the north beyond the Great 
Lakes into Canada and on to the edge of the Arctic regions. 
In the winter the cold north winds sweep down over 
this flat country bringing storms of snow and sleet. These 
storms are called blizzards. They bring such cold and so 
much snow and ice that the young wheat would die if 
planted in the fall. So the farmer of the plains must wait 
until spring before he can plant his wheat fields. 

Then his farm is so large that if he were to plow it with 
horses as the Pennsylvania farmer does, it would take so 


36 


THE UNITED STATES 


long that the planting time would be past. So he uses 
tractors to pull his gang-plows. These gang-plows have 
several plow-shares on each plow so that instead of one 
furrow they make eight or ten or even fifty furrows at a 
time. Some of the larger farms use a number of these 
tractors and gang-plows at once. In this way hundreds 
of acres of land are plowed in a single day. Then when the 
wheat is ripe, the tractors draw much larger reaping 



The largest plow in the world 


machines than those used in the East, machines that reap, 
thresh and pack the wheat into bags. 

The farms are so large and the crop so great that no 
farmer could have barns large enough to hold his wheat. 
The cut grain is taken to the great steam threshing machine 
in one of the fields and threshed at once. This great 
machine separates the grain from the straw and the chaff. 
If we watch it a little while we may see the brown grains 
of wheat pouring out of a trough in the side of the machine. 
They are caught in bags or sacks. As fast as a sack is 
filled men carry it away to wagons. From another part 





THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN 


37 


of the machine a large fan blows out the straw and chaff 
or hulls of the wheat. The pile of straw grows larger and 
larger till it looks like a great hill in the level fields. 

The wagons loaded with bags of wheat are driven to the 
nearest place on the railroad. Here there are large buildings 
like towers. These are called grain elevators. The bags 
of grain are lifted to the top of these buildings and emptied 
into boxes or bins. The first floor of a grain elevator is 
built like a tunnel through which the railroad tracks are 
laid. The big box cars are drawn into this tunnel and pulled 



Threshing on a wheat farm 


under a large trough which comes out from the bottom of 
the bins. Then the top of the car and the end of the trough 
are opened and the wheat pours out like a river till the car 
is filled. Whole trains of cars are filled in this way and 
then sent away to some city, where the flour mills turn 
the wheat into flour. 

Not all the wheat is turned into flour in nearby cities. 
Much of it is shipped by railways and by boats to the 
Eastern States and to other countries of the world. The 
cities which ship most wheat are Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. 
Louis, New Orleans, Duluth, Chicago and Buffalo. Find 



38 


THE UNITED STATES 


these cities on your map and see if you can tell why they 
ship so much wheat. 

At the close of the wheat harvest we would see long 
trains of box cars loaded with wheat traveling east over the 
Pennsylvania Railroad through Pittsburg and Philadelphia 
to New York. Farther north we would find the same 
kind of trains going east from Buffalo over the New York 



A ship loading from a grain elevator 

Central Railroad. Long lines of wheat-laden canal boats 
pass through the Erie Canal and down the Hudson River 
to New York. On the Great Lakes are many “whale 
back” steamers loaded with wheat. What have we learned 
about New York City that will help us to understand why 
so much wheat is sent there? 

In addition to all this wheat that is sent east a great 
deal is made into flour in the West. The City of Min- 






THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN 


39 


neapolis, in Minnesota, is the greatest flour city in the 
world. 

When we were reading about the New England and 
Atlantic Coast regions we learned how waterfalls are used 
to help man and why cities grow up near waterfalls. It is 
quite natural then that the flour-milling city of Minneapolis 
should be just where it is. In the upper part of the Mis¬ 
sissippi River at the place where Minneapolis stands are 
the great Falls of St. Anthony. This fact alone will help 
us to understand why there are many mills there. We 



Reapers at work 

must remember too that Minneapolis is in Minnesota, 
which is one of the great wheat growing states. It is also 
located on a navigable river and is on the line of several 
railroads. Thus Minneapolis is near an important source 
of raw material, the wheat fields; it has plenty of power 
to run its mills; it has transportation facilities by both 
railway and water. The people of Minneapolis have taken 
advantage of all these opportunities and have made 
Minneapolis the flour milling center of the world. Flour 
from the huge Minneapolis mills goes to almost every part 
of the world. Not only does the wheat come here from 





40 


THE UNITED STATES 


the fields of the United States, but a large amount comes 
over the border from the fields of our large northern 
neighbor, Canada. We must not think that all of the 
world’s wheat is raised in our own country. There are a 
number of important wheat - growing regions scattered 
all over the world. If you will refer to the distribution 
map you will see where these regions are. 

There are other things beside flour which we get from 
wheat. If you ever visit Niagara Falls you will find there 



The largest flour mill in the world at Minneapolis 


a great factory making biscuits from shredded wheat. 
Probably you eat some breakfast food or cereal every 
morning. Many of these are made from wheat. Another 
form in which we eat wheat is macaroni. For many years 
all the macaroni used in this country was imported from 
Italy. A great deal of macaroni is still brought over from 
the Italian mills, but a large amount is now being made in 
this country. Then the great stacks of straw which we 
saw the thresher piling up are of use for bedding cattle and 
horses in barns during the winter and for many other pur- 








THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN 


41 


poses. So although flour is by far the most important 
product of wheat we must not forget its many other uses. 

As we go farther west across the Great Central Plain 
we will come in sight of mountain ranges whose height 
and size will make our Appalachian Mountains seem like 
little hills. These are the great Rocky Mountain High¬ 
lands stretching from the Arctic Ocean through all of 
North America and under a different name all the way 
down through South America. This mighty wall has a 



A cattle ranch on the plains 


most important effect on the western side of our great 
plain region. 

On the western side of North America the rain winds 
are from the west. They gather up their moisture from the 
Pacific Ocean and bring it in over our continent. Then 
they meet with the huge wall of the Rocky Mountains. 
The rain clouds are forced to go so high to scale this wall 
that they reach a place where the air is very cold. This 
condenses the moisture and down it comes either as rain 
or snow. It falls on the tops and western slopes of the 
mountains. By the time the clouds have passed over the 
mountain wall they have practically disappeared. So in 
the western states of the Central Plain region we find a 




42 


THE UNITED STATES 


dry climate, as compared to the valleys of the Mississippi 
and Ohio Rivers. In these valleys there is always plenty 
of rainfall and the soil is moist as well as fertile. That 
is why we found such rich farms in the corn belt states 
bordering on these rivers. 

The soil in the western states is just as fertile as that 
in the river valleys to the east. But if plants are to grow 
they must have plenty of moisture and, as we have seen, 
there is little rainfall in the region just east of the Rocky 
Mountains. Ordinary farming was impossible here. But 



The world’s great live stock production 

these plains, dry as they were, were covered with grass. 
So the early settlers here began cattle raising. At first 
there were no boundaries to the ranches. Each man 
branded his cattle and horses with his own mark and turned 
them out on the range to look after themselves. Many 
died in the winter blizzards, some were killed by wolves or 
bears, but most of these cattle lived and grew. Later they 
were gathered together; each ranchman picked out those 
bearing his own mark and they were driven to the railroad 
to be sent to the nearest big city. From Wyoming to 
western Texas, the states just east of the Rockies were 
covered with cattle and horses. To-day the great range 
has been broken up into fenced ranches. Some of the land 






THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN 


43 


has been irrigated or watered by drawing water down from 
the mountain lakes and streams and letting it run through 
the fields in ditches. We shall hear more about irrigation 
in our studies of the Western Highland region. But 
although the ranches are smaller there are more of them 
and more cattle being fed on them each year. These cattle 
are shipped into the stockyards in the cities, where they 
are killed, cut up and the meat prepared for sending out 
to other places. The buildings where this work is done 
are called packing houses. The greatest packing cities 
in the United States are Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha and 
St. Louis. The greatest of all is Chicago. 

Suppose we try to see what life on a ranch in the great 
plains region is like. Many of these ranches are so large 
that even the great wheat farms of the Dakotas are small 
when compared to the ranches. Somewhere on this im¬ 
mense stretch of land are the ranch house and other build¬ 
ings. Usually these are roughly built, and not comfortable 
as city people understand comfort. On some of the wealth¬ 
ier ranches we would find comfortable houses but mostly 
they were what the men living in them called 44 shacks.” 
These ranch houses were many miles from any railroad 
and a still greater distance from any town. All year round, 
whether in the short, very hot summer or the long, cold 
winter the cowboys must be in the saddle, riding the range 
to look after the cattle. Their food was plentiful but coarse, 
and they had the same kind of food most of the year 
around. Of course these men, who had to endure such 
great hardships, became toughened and hardened. In re¬ 
cent years, towns have grown up in the cattle country and 
with the invention and spread of the telephone, and phono¬ 
graph and the building of many railroads, life on a cattle 
ranch is not nearly so hard and lonely as it used to be. 

When we study South America we shall learn of a similar, 


44 


THE UNITED STATES 


dry, grazing region there. If we look at the cattle distri¬ 
bution map we shall find that there are more such regions 
in other parts of the world, in Eurasia, in Africa and in 
Australia. 

The business of killing cattle, hogs, and sheep and pre¬ 
paring them for food has become one of the most important 
industries of the United States. In Chicago alone, thou- 



Stockyards at Chicago 


sands of people are employed in the stockyards and packing 
houses. In these places almost every part of the animal 
is used for something. Besides the meat which is used for 
food, the skins are made into leather; the hair is used for 
bristles to put into brushes; glue is made from the hoofs; 
the bones are ground up and made into fertilizer. Some 
of the meat is prepared by cooking, and packed into cans 
to be sent all over the world. Much of it is packed into 
refrigerator cars and frozen as it is carried over the railroad 





THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN 


45 


to other cities. Some of this frozen meat is packed on board 
refrigerator ships and sent over the seas. 

We have learned how dry the climate is in this great 
cattle region. In some years there is less rain than in others 
and even the coarse bunch-grass dries up. Then the leaner 
cattle are gathered, driven to the railroad and shipped by 
trainloads to the towns in the corn belt region. Here they 
are bought by the farmers, who turn them into their rich 
meadows or feed them with the chopped corn stalks from 
their silos or even with the ears of corn. On this kind of 
food, the poor, half-starved cattle soon become fat and 
ready for market. Some of the farmers in the corn belt 
make a good deal of money each year by buying and 
fattening these lean cattle from the western plains. 

While agriculture in its different forms is the most 
important industry in the Central Plain region, we must 
not forget the other industries. In the states of Michigan 
and Wisconsin there are large forests of white pine from 
which a very large amount of lumber is cut each year. 
Along the southern shores of Lake Superior are some low 
mountains in which there are very important iron and 
copper mines. The iron ore from these Lake Superior 
mines is of a splendid quality and is much in demand. 
These mines are worked in a different way from the iron 
mines of the Appalachian Mountains. In the East the iron 
ore is deep down in the earth and the iron mines are deep 
shafts and tunnels very much like coal mines. Along the 
shores of Lake Superior the iron ore is so near the surface 
that it can be taken out without tunneling. These iron 
mines are all open at the surface much like a stone quarry. 
There is one hill, called Iron Mountain, that is almost 
entirely made of iron ore. 

In the State of Michigan are located some of the largest 
salt mines in the United States. 


46 


THE UNITED STATES 


In the great cities of this region, Chicago, Minneapolis, 
Omaha, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit, and others, there 
is a very large amount of manufacturing. One of the 
smaller cities, Grand Rapids, in Michigan; is one of the great 

furniture manufacturing 
towns of the world. 
Detroit has the largest 
automobile factories in 
the world. 

Some of the other 
cities, Milwaukee, Indi¬ 
anapolis, Cincinnati and 
Cleveland, are impor¬ 
tant manufacturing and 
financial centers. 

Find all these cities 
on your map, and see 
if you can tell from their 
location how they came 
to be important. 

The great Central 
Plain region contains 
many big things; big 
cattle, big hogs, big 
wheat fields, big cities, 
big corn fields. It 
has also the longest 
river system in the 
world. The Mississippi River with its longest tributary, 
the Missouri River, forms a river system over four thousand 
two hundred miles long. The immense volume of water 
poured into the Mississippi by the Missouri, the Ohio, the 
Arkansas, the Red, and many other smaller rivers, makes 
it so large that the Indian name, which means “Father of 







THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN 


47 


Waters, seems to exactly fit. Along the lower part of the 
river the banks are so low that when the ice and snow melt 
in the north in the spring, the river always overflows. These 
overflows would flood all the land for miles on both sides 
of the river. To prevent these floods embankments or 
levees like those at New Orleans have been built all along 



Loading lake vessels at Cleveland 

the river on both sides. Even with these walls the river 
sometimes breaks through and causes a great deal of 
damage. 

We have read of the cattle, sheep and hogs that are 
raised in parts of this region. We must not forget the 
horses. In Nebraska more horses are raised than in any 
other state. There are thousands of acres of land in this 
state given up entirely to this industry, and in one large 









48 


THE UNITED STATES 


town, Grand Island, all the business of the town centers 
around the raising, feeding and selling of horses. During 
the World War the United States Government and the 
British Government bought thousands of horses at Grand 
Island, Nebraska. Another state that is famous for its fine 
horses is Kentucky. The fertile blue grass fields of this 
state are wonderful pasture land for the hundreds and 
hundreds of thoroughbred horses that are raised in Ken¬ 
tucky. Besides its horses, the chief product of Kentucky 
is tobacco. The soil of Kentucky seems particularly fine 
for the raising of tobacco. The bright sunshine dries the 
long, smooth leaves to a ripeness that makes Kentucky 
tobacco famous for its flavor. 

If we look at the map we will notice that along the 
northern edge of the Central Plain region of the United 
States we have a series of great bodies of water. These 
are known as the Great Lakes. Beginning at the west 
their names are Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, 
Lake Erie, Lake Ontario. If we look closely we will see 
that these lakes are all connected by streams and smaller 
lakes. Then, at the eastern end of the chain we will notice 
that the great St. Lawrence River begins in Lake Ontario 
and flows northeast to finally empty into the Atlantic Ocean. 
These lakes and their connections are arranged as if they 
were on a series of steps, each one a little lower than the 
one before. Thus Lake Huron is a step lower than Lake 
Superior, Lake Erie lower than Lake Huron, and Lake 
Ontario than Lake Erie. We know that water always 
flows down, so it is easy to see that the water from Lake 
Superior finally reaches the Atlantic Ocean through the 
St. Lawrence River. This chain of great inland seas and 
their connecting streams and outlets give the people of the 
Central Plain a wonderful water road over which to ship 
their products. The road itself was built by nature but 


THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN 


49 


men had to finish it before it could be used. The fall 
between Lake Superior and Lake Huron is not great 
enough to cause a waterfall but the stream known as Sault 



Niagara Falls 

Ste. Marie is full of rocks and rapids over which large boats 
could not pass. So men have built a canal around these 
rapids. This is called the Soo Canal. The Niagara River 




50 


THE UNITED STATES 


is the connection between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. 
Here the fall is so great that the wonderful Niagara Falls 
is formed. Here again men have built a canal around the 
falls. This is the Welland Canal. With these two Canals 
it is possible for a ship to sail from Duluth at the western 
end of Lake Superior all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. 
Not many ships have been in the habit of doing this, but 
quite recently the citizens of Chicago have arranged for a 
line of steamships to connect their city directly with ports 
in Europe. There is a great deal of commerce over these 
lakes between lake ports. The most important of these 
ports are Duluth, Chicago and Milwaukee on Lake Michi¬ 
gan, Detroit on the Detroit River between Lake Huron 
and Lake Erie, and Toledo, Cleveland, Erie and Buffalo 
on Lake Erie. Find these cities on the map. The impor¬ 
tant products carried over the lake routes are wheat from the 
great fields of the Dakotas and Minnesota and the Canadian 
wheat region; flour from the mills of Minneapolis; iron 
ore and copper from the mines along the shores of Lake 
Superior; lumber from the forests of Michigan and Wis¬ 
consin; salt from the Michigan salt mines; and fish that 
are caught in the lakes themselves. The ships going west 
frequently carry coal. Where is this coal mined? 

These ships can only make their trips across the lakes 
during a part of the year. The water in these lakes is fresh 
water, which freezes much more easily than the salt water 
of the ocean. During the winter when the north winds 
sweep down across the great plains from the Arctic Regions 
the water near the shore in the Great Lakes freezes very 
hard. Then the harbors of the lake ports are all blocked 
with ice and the ship trade across the lakes must stop. 

It might seem from what you have just read that Niagara 
Falls is only a hindrance to trade. In the last few years 
the power of this giant among waterfalls has been harnessed 


THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN 


51 


just like the smaller falls. Niagara now turns huge dynamos 
which make electric power. This power is sent over wires 
to cities many miles away from the Falls. Buffalo, 
Rochester and many smaller towns on the American side 
of the river. Toronto and many other Canadian towns 
also have electric lights and street cars run by the power 
of this beautiful waterfall, which is considered one of the 
wonderful sights of the world. 

The way in which the power of Niagara Falls is being 
used shows very clearly how men take and use the natural 
resources of the land in which they live. It also shows 
how the geography of a country affects the lives of the 
people who live there. Let us see how this is shown in the 
Central Plain region of our continent. The people of the 
prairie country found a rich deep soil spread over the level 
plains. They found a climate in which corn and wheat 
would grow wonderfully. They became mostly farmers 
and have used the rich soil so well that it feeds not only 
the people who live in it but hundreds of thousands of 
others in far away parts of our own continent and in other 
countries over the seas. They could not do this without 
machinery. So inventors made great gang-plows, tractors, 
steam threshing machines and grain elevators to make 
easier the cultivation of such large farms, as we find in the 
corn belt and the wheat country. 

In the dry western plains corn and wheat cannot grow. 
There men raise cattle and sheep to furnish meat and wool 
for a large part of the world’s people. 

Where the forests of Michigan and the iron and copper 
mines of the Lake Superior range give large quantities of 
raw material for manufacturing, men have built cities and 
established manufacturing industries on a very large 
scale. 

They have made use of nature’s roads by covering the 


52 


THE UNITED STATES 


Mississippi River system and the Great Lakes with fleets 
of steamboats. 

Where nature had placed obstacles like rapids and 
waterfalls in the way of ships men have built canals around 
them and then harnessed the power of the falls to turn their 
factory machinery and light their cities. 

Thus we see that the geography of the Central Plain 
region determined the occupations and lives of its people, 
and the answer of these people to the geographical condi¬ 
tions made possible the fullest use of the gifts of nature 
in this rich and prosperous region. 


CHAPTER V 


THE WESTERN HIGHLAND 

In our study of the Great Plains region of the United 
States we have already mentioned the wall of mountains 
which shuts in this region on the west. This mountain 
system is composed of a great number of long, high 
ranges running generally north and south. These ranges 
enclose high valleys or level spaces sometimes contain¬ 
ing thousands of square miles. These are called parks. 
These mountains are very high. They are so much higher 
than the Appalachian Mountains that the base of Pike’s 
Peak, one of the best known of the Rocky Mountains, is as 
high as the top of Mount Mitchell, the highest one in the 
Appalachians. The western mountain ranges extend not 
only through the United States but through our whole 
continent from the Arctic Ocean on the North to the 
Antarctic on the South. The Western Highland region 
is so large that it includes eleven great states, Montana, 
Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, 
Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and California. 

The highest peak in North America is Mount McKinley 
in Alaska. The chief range of mountains in this region is, 
of course, the Rocky Mountain range. Between this range 
and the Pacific Ocean are a large number of other ranges 
running parallel to the Rocky Mountains and forming part 
of the same highland region. Some of these ranges are the 
Cascade, Sierra Nevada, Sierra Madre, and the Coast 
Range. Find these ranges on your map. In most places 

53 


54 


THE UNITED STATES 


along the western coast these mountains come down very 
close to the Pacific Ocean, so that we do not find here as in 
the east a wide sandy coastal plain. But in the mountain 
parks and in the river valleys of this highland region there 
are wide spaces of very fertile soil. 

Most of these mountains are so high that their tops are 
covered with snow all the year round. If we were to climb 
up one of these high mountains we would find that the 
lower slopes were covered with thick forests. As we 
climbed higher and the air became colder we would find 
that the trees were smaller until finally they were like 
bushes. Then we would come out of the woods jinto a 
region of great bare rocks. This line, beyond which the 
air is too cold for trees or bushes to grow, is called the 
“ timber line.” After climbing still higher over the rocks 
with the air growing bitterly cold we would soon find our¬ 
selves surrounded by snow and ice which never melt. 
The lower edge of this region of everlasting snow is called 
the ‘ 4 snow line.’ ’ During the winter the snow covering comes 
down into the valleys and the whole region is covered many 
feet deep with the white drifts. In the spring the snow 
melts, up to the snow line. This melting snow and the 
heavy rains, which fall on parts of the mountains, form many 
lakes in the hollows among the great peaks. One of the 
largest and most beautiful of these lakes is Yellowstone 
Lake, in the Yellowstone National Park, in the northwest 
corner of the State of Wyoming. This lake is about 7000 
feet above the level of the sea and is said to be the second 
highest lake of any size in the world. The highest is a lake 
in the Andes Mountains of South America. The water 
in these lakes must flow out somewhere, so^here we have 
the beginning of great rivers, starting out as small streams 
from the mountain lakes and gathering size as they flow. 
We saw that most of the rivers in the Appalachian Mountain 


THE WESTERN HIGHLAND 


55 



system were short. Those in the Western Highland are 
usually very long. Some of these rivers flow down one side 
of the mountains and some down the other. We have the 
great streams of the Missouri-Mississippi system, including 
the Platte, the Yellowstone, the Arkansas, and many others, 
flowing toward the 
east and south and 
emptying into the Gulf 
of Mexico. Another 
system which follows 
this same general di¬ 
rection is the Rio 
Grande, also emptying 
into the Gulf of Mexi¬ 
co. Chief among those 
which flow west to the 
Pacific are the mighty 
Columbia with its trib¬ 
utaries, and the Colo¬ 
rado River. Where 
these rivers have cut 
their way through the 
mountains we find 
some of the most 
beautiful scenery in 
the world. The gorge 
of the Arkansas River 
in Colorado, the 

Canyon of the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone Park, 
Wyoming, and the world famous Grand Canyon of the 
Colorado River in Arizona are good examples. 

The ridge of the mountains which divides the streams 
flowing east from those flowing west is called the Continental 
Divide. On the top of this divide in the Yellowstone Park 


Gorge of the Arkansas River 




56 


THE UNITED STATES 


is a little lake called Two Ocean Lake. Out of each end 
of this lake flows a little stream. One of the streams flows 
into the Yellowstone, which is a part of the Mississippi 
River system, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. The 
other pours into one of the tributaries of the Columbia 

and finally finds its way 
into the Pacific Ocean. 

We have already 
learned how the moist 
westerly winds from the 
Pacific affect the cli¬ 
mate of this region. 
The western slopes of 
the mountains receive 
nearly all the moisture 
while the eastern slopes 
remain almost dry. This 
accounts partly for the 
very heavy forests on 
the western side, in¬ 
cluding the giant red¬ 
wood trees of Northern 
California and the very 
large Douglas fir trees 
of Oregon and Wash¬ 
ington. 

We learned that the greatest wealth of the Appalachian 
system was in its mines. We may expect to find this same 
fact true of the Western Highland. Some of the largest 
and richest gold and silver mines in the world are found 
here in these mountain states. It was the discovery of 
gold in California which led to the famous rush of 1849, 
about which you will learn in your history. This rush of 
men to the gold country helped to settle the far West very 



Grand Canyon in Arizona 




THE WESTERN HIGHLAND 


57 


quickly. Mining has been one of the chief industries of 
the people of this region ever since then. 

The States of Montana, Idaho, Nevada and Colorado 
depend chiefly on mining. The three chief metals which 
are mined here are gold, silver and copper. Besides these 
three most important metals Colorado has rich lead mines. 
Colorado also has some important coal mines. In Central 
California is located one of the world’s great sources of 



Mining in Idaho 


petroleum. The oil wells of California are more valuable 
than her gold mines. 

But even though mining is perhaps the most important 
industry of the Western Highland region it is not the only 
one. The rich river valleys of the western slopes produce 
large crops. Southern California with its mild climate, 
where winter is kept away by the warm Japan current, is 
one of the world’s great fruit growing regions. Oranges, 
lemons, peaches, plums, raisins, grapes, are sent from Cali¬ 
fornia all over the world. The lumbering industry in the 





I 


58 THE UNITED STATES 

redwood and fir forests of Northern California, Oregon and 
Washington furnishes employment to thousands of men 
and gives the world millions of feet of excellent lumber. 
From the Columbia River come thousands and thousands 
of cans of salmon. The hills of Montana and Idaho give 
pasture to millions of sheep which furnish wool for the 
textile mills of our eastern states. The mountain parks 
give excellent pasture for great herds of cattle. 

Some of these industries are so important as to deserve 
more than just to be mentioned. We are going to study 



A fish wheel on the Columbia River 


more closely the salmon fishing industry of the regions of 
the Columbia and Yukon Rivers. We have already learned 
of the importance of fishing to the people of the Eastern 
coast, particularly New England. There most of the fish 
are caught from fishing boats out at sea. The fish of the 
east, cod, mackerel, and so on, are all salt water fish. The 
salmon of the Columbia and other western rivers is a sea 
fish, but like the shad of our own Delaware River it comes 
into fresh water to spawn or lay its eggs. Every spring 





THE WESTERN HIGHLAND 


59 


the large rivers of the North Pacific coast are filled with 
large salmon swimming in the open spaces, leaping up 
small waterfalls and working their way up to the cool fresh 
water of rivers beyond the reach of the ocean tides. Here 
they lay their millions of eggs and here the millions of young 
salmon are hatched. Later on these young fish make their 
way back into the sea where they live until it is time for 
them to spawn. Then they return to the fresh water. 
Along the rivers as the salmon come up are hundreds of 
men, both white men and Indians, waiting. They use 
great nets, spears, fish traps and fish wheels to catch the 
salmon. These fish are then sent to the canneries to be 
cleaned, packed and sealed in cans. They are then shipped 
all over the world to be sold in stores as canned salmon. 
Most of the salmon are canned but some are prepared to 
keep for a long time by drying and salting, some by smoking 
them, as people smoke hams and bacon, and some are frozen 
and shipped in refrigerator cars to the great cities. The 
center of the salmon catching industry is at Astoria, a town 
at the mouth of the Columbia River. The chief cities from 
which canned or prepared salmon are sent out are Portland 
Oregon, San Francisco, Seattle and Tacoma. Find these 
cities on your map. 

So many of the salmon were caught each year as they 
went up the river to spawn, that there was danger of soon 
having no salmon at all. It became necessary for the 
government to pass laws regulating the fishing so that some 
fish would be able to get past the nets, wheels and traps to 
the places where they lay their eggs. In order to help still 
more to keep up the supply of salmon the government has 
established fish hatcheries along the Columbia and other 
rivers. In these hatcheries the eggs are taken from live 
salmon right after they are caught, and hatched by arti¬ 
ficial means. The little salmon are kept in small ponds 


60 


THE UNITED STATES 


and fed until they are large enough to take care of them¬ 
selves and escape being eaten by larger fish and animals. 
Then they are placed in the river and allowed to go free. 
In this way thousands of salmon are saved in the waters of 
Oregon and neighboring rivers 
every year, and the industry con¬ 
tinues without destroying all the 
fish. 

We have already seen how the 
Rocky Mountains cause the rain 
and snow from the moist westerly 
winds to fall on the western slopes. 
This causes the valleys and moun¬ 
tain parks on the other side of 
the mountains to be very dry. 
When the first settlers came into 
the valleys of Colorado, Wyoming, 
Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New 
Mexico and some parts of Cali¬ 
fornia, they found almost no plants 
except the cactus and a little bush 
known as sage brush. The soil 
was deep and looked as if it 
should be rich. But plants cannot 
grow without moisture. You know how the grass in the 
lawns and parks here dries and turns yellow in the summer 
when we have no rain for several weeks. Among the sage 
brush there was some short grass called bunch grass upon 
which sheep or some cattle might pasture. But most of 
this region on the eastern side of the great mountain ranges 
could not be used at all. People called it the Great Ameri¬ 
can Desert. If you will look at your rainfall maps you will 
find two great belts of dry desert land around the earth. 
One of these goes through the Sahara region of Northern 




THE WESTERN HIGHLAND 


61 


Africa, the peninsula of Arabia in Asia, the high plateau 
region of Central Asia, and Peru and Northern Chili in 
South America. The other includes parts of South Africa 
and Central Australia. Try to find from your maps the 
direction of the winds and the position of the mountains 
that cause each of these regions to be so dry. 

In the American desert region we find again how man 
has met and overcome the geographical conditions that 
existed. The settlers discovered that there was plenty of 
water in the springs and lakes in the mountains. They 
decided to dig great ditches or canals to let this mountain 
water run down the mountain sides and over their dry 
fields. This plan of artificial watering of dry soil is called 
irrigation. The first irrigation systems in the Western 
Highland region were small, but they proved that the dry 
soil was unusually rich. As soon as the ground was given 
moisture the farmers found they could raise enormous 
crops of all kinds. The first farmers, who tried irrigation, 
soon saw that it would be much more successful if they 
could store up the water from the melting snows on the 
mountains. If they could do this it would give them water 
for their land all the year round instead of only in the 
spring. But to save this water would mean the building 
of many large dams which would cost a great deal of money. 
So the farmers appealed to our government to help them. 
To-day the United States Government has built immense 
dams in many places throughout the Western highlands. 
These dams hold back the spring floods and form large 
lakes or reservoirs of water. Connected with these reser¬ 
voirs are miles of large canals, smaller canals and finally 
little irrigation ditches through which the water flows over 
the cultivated fields. The largest of these dams is named 
the Roosevelt Dam for former President Roosevelt, who 
took a great interest in the irrigation plans. 


62 


THE UNITED STATES 


These reservoirs, canals and ditches cost the government 
millions of dollars. But they turned what was once desert 
into some of the richest farming and fruit growing country 
in the world. The beautiful apples which we get from 
Washington and Oregon; the oranges, lemons, plums, 
grapes and other fruits of Southern California; the fruit, 
and cotton, and wheat of the Imperial Valley of California 
and the wheat of Utah, all are made to grow by irrigation. 



Oregon apple orchards 


The dry climate of the irrigated countries has some 
advantages. Most of our dried fruit, prunes, raisins and 
so on, comes from California. By means of irrigation the 
dry soil is made to raise wonderful crops of fruit. Then 
the fruit can be simply placed out in the sunshine in this 
land of no rain, and the sun soon turns it into dried fruit. 
Several large cities have grown up as centers of trade in 
the irrigated regions. The most important of these are 
Los Angeles, California; Denver, Colorado; and Salt Lake 
City, Utah. Find these on your map. 

The development of irrigation has only begun. Although 
thousands of acres of dry desert have been reclaimed and 




THE WESTERN HIGHLAND 


03 


made rich, there are in this highland region millions of acres 
more awaiting the irrigation ditch to become just as fruit¬ 
ful as the beautiful valleys of Washington, Oregon and 
Southern California. 

Because the mountains in this Western Highland region 
are newer and because the land has not sunk to let in the 
sea, we find along the Pacific Coast no such numbers of 
drowned valleys that make fine harbors as we found on 
the Atlantic Coast. There are a few excellent harbors here, 
however, and around them great commercial cities have 
grown up. The most important of these are San Francisco 
in California, Seattle and Tacoma on Puget Sound in 
Washington, and Portland on the Columbia River, in 
Oregon. Into the harbors of these cities come ships from 
China, Japan, the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska, places in 
Mexico and South America, bringing the products of Asia, 
the Pacific Islands and the frozen North. They carry 
back with them the products of the mines, ranches, farms, 
and forests of the great Western Highland region. Many 
times you may see at the wharves in Philadelphia or New 
York vessels with the name Seattle or San Francisco painted 
on them. Can you find out how they may have come to 
reach here from their home ports? Some of the inland 
cities built on the lines of the transcontinental railways 
have grown to great importance. Of these the most 
important are Denver, Colorado, Spokane, Washington, 
and Los Angeles, California. 

We must not forget the beautiful scenery of our Western 
Highland. You have already heard something of the 
Yellowstone National Park with its high mountains, its 
wonderful lake, and its beautiful canyon through which 
the Yellowstone River leaps over its falls, on its way to 
join the Missouri. 

The Yellowstone Park is the oldest of a number of 


64 


THE UNITED STATES 


national parks established by our government to protect 
the natural wonders of our country and to make playgrounds 
for our people. Some of the others are the Glacier National 
Park in Montana, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colo¬ 
rado, Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, and Yosemite 
Valley and Sequoia National Parks in California. In these 



Old Faithful Geyser 

parks there are forests of great trees, like the giant redwoods 
of California, beautiful mountains, rivers and lakes; gey¬ 
sers and hot springs; wild animals and wild flowers. The 
government has built roads through the national parks so 
that people may be able to visit them, and has put them in 
charge of men called park rangers to preserve and protect 
the beauties of the parks so that all may enjoy them for 
all time. 






THE WESTERN HIGHLAND 


65 


The Japan Current, a warm stream of water from the 
Japan Sea on the eastern coast of Asia, flows all along our 
western coast. Because of this warm current the climate 
of the Pacific coast region is much warmer than we should 
expect to find it. Even in the northern part, in Oregon and 
Washington the winters along the coast are much shorter 
and milder than in the New England States, which are in 
the same latitude, that is the same distance from the 
Equator. In the southern part of California there is prac¬ 
tically no winter and in some places the climate is so warm 



Giant trees in California 


that palm trees and semi-tropical plants grow well out of 
doors. This makes possible the great groves of orange, 
lemon and olive trees, and the raising of all kinds of semi- 
tropical fruits. 

The mild climate of Southern California also makes it a 
favorite winter resort for people from all over the world. 
Every winter finds thousands of people from the Eastern 
States and many from other countries crowding into Los 
Angeles, Pasadena, Santa Barbara, San Diego and other 
towns to enjoy the bathing and outdoor life which is made 
possible here all the year round by the warmth of the 
Japan Current. The business of entertaining tourists in 




66 


THE UNITED STATES 


the winter has become as important here as we found it in 
New England in the summer. 

The splendid climate of Southern California and the dry 
plateau regions of the Western Highland have made life out 
of doors possible all the year round. The people of these 
regions are out-of-door people. They are active, energetic 
and physically strong. They are not so much interested 
in books, or in studies, as the people of the East, whom the 
long winters force in doors a large part of the year. So the 
far West has not yet given us many great writers or scholars. 
The people there are more given to doing things than to 
thinking, studying or writing about them. 


PART II.—THE REMAINDER OF 
NORTH AMERICA 


CHAPTER VI 
ALASKA AND CANADA 

We have been used to hearing Washington and Oregon 
spoken of as the Far Northwest. There is a part of our 
continent belonging to the United States which is much 
farther to the Northwest. This is the great country of 
Alaska. The map will show you that the main part of 
Alaska stretches from about 55 ° North latitude to 72 ° 
North latitude, and from about 140° West longitude to 
about 170° West longitude. There is a narrow strip along 
the coast which reaches much farther to the east, and the 
Aleutian Islands stretch out beyond the 180th meridian. 
If you look at a map of the hemisphere you will see lines 
running across it from east to west and north to south. 
These lines have numbers at their ends. The east to west 
lines are called parallels of latitude, and the north and south 
lines meridians of longitude. 

The distance around the earth, about 24,000 miles, is 
too great to be measured as we measure ordinary distances. 
For convenience in locating places on the surface of the 
earth and ships at sea, men have divided each of the 
circles around the outside of the earth into 360 equal parts 
called degrees. In order to number these degrees we must 

67 






:rn^ 






































































ALASKA AND CANADA 


69 


have a starting point. So we have decided to draw an 
imaginary line from east to west around the earth exactly 
halfway between the North Pole and the South Pole. 
This line you know as the Equator. When we wish to 
measure distances north or south of the Equator we draw 
lines around the earth parallel to the Equator and count 
the number of degrees north or south of our starting point. 
These lines are called parallels and the distance of any 
place from the Equator is called its latitude. The North 
and South Poles of the earth are each one-fourth of the 
distance around the earth from the Equator, or 90° North 
latitude and 90° South latitude. 

In measuring distances around the earth from east to 
west we have no Equator. Instead we have decided to 
begin at a line passing through the poles and the town of 
Greenwich, near London, England. This line is called the 
Meridian of Greenwich. Lines drawn North and South 
around the earth all pass through the North Pole and the 
South Pole and are called Meridians of Longitude. We 
measure west from the Meridian of Greenwich and call the 
distance west longitude till we reach 180°, just halfway 
around the earth and then begin again, calling the other 
half east longitude. 

Now let us see where Alaska is. It reaches we said 
from 55° North latitude to about 72 ° North latitude. If 
the North Pole is 90° north of the Equator Alaska is very 
near to the North Pole and very far from the Equator. 
In fact the Arctic Circle passes through Alaska so that 
part of it is in the North Frigid Zone. What does this tell 
us about its climate? It is almost halfway around the 
earth from the Meridian of Greenwich and extends so far 
west that its western point almost touches the eastern 
point of Asia. It is just a few miles across the narrow 
Bering Strait from Alaska to Siberia. If we could sail 


70 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


straight south from Nome, in Alaska, to a point in the 
Pacific Ocean directly opposite San Francisco, we would 
then be just as far west of the California city as Boston 
is east of it. 

From its position so far north we would expect Alaska 
to be entirely a frozen land, but the same warm Japan 
Current that flows along the California coast touches the 
southern part of Alaska. As a result the harbors of the 
southern part are never frozen. Of course the winters are 
long and very bitterly cold. The summers are short but 
quite warm. In the summer the slopes of the hills and the 
shores of the bays of Southern Alaska are covered with 
beautiful wild flowers, and many crops that need only a 
short season can be raised here. The northern part of 
Alaska is very cold. Within the Arctic Circle very few 
plants can grow and the whole region is a great frozen 
tundra or plain. 

The surface of southern Alaska is very mountainous. 
These mountains are a part of the great Rocky Mountain 
system or Western Highland. One of the Alaskan peaks, 
Mt. McKinley, as we heard before, is the highest mountain 
in North America. The Alaska Mountains come close 
to the sea and there are many drowned valleys reminding 
us of the coast of New England. North of these high 
mountains is the valley of the Yukon River. This river 
is one of the largest in North America. Its length is as 
great as the distance from New York to Salt Lake City. 
It has a number of smaller rivers as tributaries. It was 
along one of these, the Klondike River, that gold was 
discovered a number of years ago, causing the famous 
Klondike gold rush. To the north of this river valley are 
the plains or tundras of Northern Alaska stretching away 
north to the Arctic Ocean. 

Most of the mountains of Alaska are covered with 


ALASKA AND CANADA 


71 


forests to the timber line. There are also great forests 
along the \ukon and its tributaries. These forests are 
filled with fur bearing animals, marten, mink, bear, lynx 
and many others. A chain of islands stretches from the 
southwestern corner of Alaska far out toward Asia across 
the Bering Sea. These islands are the homes of millions 
of seals. Every spring the seals come north to these islands 
from the warmer waters of the South Pacific where they 



Fur seals on Pribiloff Islands, Alaska 


spend the winter. The baby seals are born on the islands 
and stay there until the cold of the Arctic winter drives 
them south. When a seal is on land it is very helpless. 
A man can easily catch it and kill it. The seal hunters 
used to come to these islands, get between a herd of seals 
and the water, and club all the seals to death. Then the 
baby seals left alone would starve. The seal skin is one 
of our most valuable furs. The hunters were killing seals 
so fast that very soon there would be no more seals, just 
as there are almost no buffalo left. The United States 






72 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


Government found it necessary to pass laws making it un¬ 
lawful to kill any seals on these islands for long periods of 
time. Then officers were sent to Alaska with fast patrol 
boats to go about among the islands and see that the law 
was obeyed. In this way the government saved the seals 
from becoming extinct. 

The waters around Alaska are full of fish. Along the 
Yukon we find great salmon fisheries and canneries just 
as we did along the Columbia River farther south. ' Many 
of the people employed in this industry are Indians and 
Eskimos. During the fishing season when the salmon come 
up the Yukon in thousands, these people come down to the 
river from their villages in the mountains and on the tundras. 
When the salmon stop coming and the fishing is over, the 
Indians and Eskimos return to their little towns to wait 
for the coming of another spring. The fish caught in 
Alaskan waters each year are worth millions of dollars. 

The industry which made Alaska famous is gold mining. 
There is much gold along the rivers and in the mountains 
of this great region. Two of the most famous mining 
places we have already mentioned, the Klondike country 
in eastern Alaska, and Nome on the western coast. Fair¬ 
banks, on a branch of the Yukon River, at the end of the 
Alaskan Railway, is another important mining town. The 
copper mines of Alaska, along the Copper River in the 
southeastern part of the territory, are almost as important 
as its gold mines. Alaska also has some coal deposits. 
The three chief industries of Alaska, then, are mining, fish¬ 
ing, and the catching of fur-bearing animals. 

There are three larger towns located in the narrow strip 
of Alaska that comes southeast along the Pacific. These 
are Juneau, Sitka and Skagway. Find them on your map. 
Of these Juneau is the capital of the Territory of Alaska. 
Alaska is one of the few territories still belonging to the 


ALASKA AND CANADA 


73 



United States. In a territory, the Governor is appointed 
by the President of the United States instead of being 
elected as in a state. The people elect their own legisla¬ 
ture but they do not send senators and representatives 
to the United States Congress. They send one delegate 
to our House of Representatives, who may speak in the 
meetings of the House but has no vote. 


Old-fashioned gold mining 

Across the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River 
is our largest near neighbor, Canada. This great country 
is a part of the British Empire but is practically self govern¬ 
ing. The British Government appoints the Governor- 
General of the Dominion of Canada, but the people elect 
their own legislatures or parliaments and make their own 
laws. 

The area of Canada is much greater than that of the 
United States, but it has very few people, because of the 




74 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


character of the surface and climate of the country. The 
southern part of Canada stretches along the northern 
border of the United States for nearly four thousand miles. 
This region contains a strip of fertile land very much like 
our Northern Central States. It is here that the great 
Canadian wheat farms you have read about are located. 
The eastern part of this strip of land, in the valley of the 
St. Lawrence River, is heavily covered with forests and little 
or no farming can be done. North of this narrow belt 



Skagway, Alaska 


comes the great Canadian forest, stretching away north 
for hundreds of miles to the shores of Hudson Bay. This 
forest is full of fur-bearing animals. The only people who 
live here, however, are the hunters and trappers, some 
wandering Indians and the few people who live about the 
Hudson Bay Company’s Posts. The Hudson Bay Company 
is an old English organization which sends out trappers 
into the forests to secure furs. Here and there through 
the great forests of Canada, this company has built little 
trading posts with stores where the trappers can secure 
food, clothing, guns, ammunition, traps and other supplies 





ALASKA AND CANADA 


75 


for their wilderness life. Here also the trappers bring their 
furs and are paid for them by the Hudson Bay Company’s 
agent. To the North of the forest region is a country of 
great frozen plains like the tundras of Northern Alaska. 
These plains are inhabited only by caribou, musk-oxen, 
wolves, foxes and a few bands of Eskimos. Through this 
plain flows one of the great rivers of Canada, the Mackenzie 
River. 

The western part of Canada is crossed by the Rocky 
Mountains and these are very heavily wooded. In the 



A lumber camp 


Province of British Columbia, just north of our State of 
Washington, the chief occupation is lumbering. Thousands 
of feet of lumber are cut in these mountain forests every 
year. There is also some mining here. The most important 
mines of Canada are the gold mines in the Canadian Klon¬ 
dike region just east of Alaska and the asbestos mines in 
eastern Canada just across the St. Lawrence River from 
New England. 

Eastern Canada has a very important fishing industry 
around the coast of Newfoundland, on the famous Grand 








76 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


Banks. The Fraser River in Western Canada shares the 
salmon fishing with its neighbors in the United States. 
This industry is increasing in importance. The Canadian 
government now forbids catching salmon on Saturday or 
Sunday. This is intended to give the fish a chance to go 
up the Fraser River to deposit their eggs. An airplane 
patrol is used on the Fraser River to enforce this rule. 

There are several important cities in Canada. Quebec 
and Montreal are on the St. Lawrence River. Toronto 



In the Canadian Rockies 


is just across Lake Ontario from our city of Buffalo. 
Ottawa, the capital of Canada, is near Toronto on the 
banks of the Ottawa River. Winnipeg, in the southern 
part of the great plain region, is an important railroad 
town and the center of the wheat industry of Canada. 
Vancouver on the northern side of Puget Sound at the 
mouth of the Fraser River is a center of the lumber and 
salmon industries. 

While Canada has a very long coast line there are no 
great seaports. The Hudson Bay coast is frozen most of 
the year. The Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes 





ALASKA AND CANADA 


77 


are blocked with ice every winter. Vancouver is the only 
Canadian seaport of any great importance, although Mon¬ 
treal and Quebec maintain steamship lines to Europe dur¬ 
ing the summer. 

• There are two great railway systems in Canada. The 
Grand Trunk Railway covers most of the eastern provinces, 
from Toronto to the Atlantic Coast, with branch lines 



Lake Louise 


reaching down into the New England States. The Canadian 
Pacific is one of the finest railroads in the world. It 
stretches from Toronto across the continent to Vancouver 
on the Pacific Ocean. The scenery along the Canadian 
Pacific where it crosses the Canadian Rockies is thought 
by many travelers to be the grandest in the world. This 
railroad carries immense quantities of wheat from the 
Canadian wheat fields to eastern cities. 

The boundary line between Canada and the United 
States differs from most international boundaries. It is 



78 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 



almost four thousand miles long. Nearly one-half of this 
length is included in the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence 
River. The other half stretches away across the great 
plains and the Rocky Mountains. In all that great distance 
there is no fortress kept up by either country, nor does 
either country keep warships on the lakes. For more than 
one hundred years these two nations have lived in peace 
separated only by an imaginary boundary line marked by 
a few stone posts miles apart. The relations between the 
United States and Canada are an example for other nations. 
Peace can easily be maintained when neighboring peoples 
have knowledge and understanding of each other’s interests 
and problems. This knowledge and understanding can be 
easily acquired by study, particularly of geography. The 
relations of our country with its great neighbor to the 
North are an excellent proof that such knowledge does 
bring peace and security without the use of arms and 
forts. 


Quebec, Canada 





CHAPTER VII 


MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE CANAL ZONE 

Yottr map of North America will show you that south 
of the United States are two great arms of the Atlantic 
Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. These 
great bodies of water push west into our continent for 
hundreds of miles. We have seen how the Appalachian 
Highland ends a little north of Florida. With these east¬ 
ern mountains out of the way, there is nothing to stop 
the sea from spreading west over the great plain region 
until it meets the foothills of the Western Highland. It 
seems that the Atlantic Ocean has taken advantage of this 
chance and pushed the Gulf of Mexico westward until the 
southern part of North America has no great plain region 
but only the Western Highland region. In our nearest 
southern neighbor, Mexico, the western mountains have 
divided into two great ranges, one of which follows the line 
of the Pacific Ocean and the other stretches along the edge 
of the Gulf of Mexico. The land between these ranges is 
high but nearly level, forming a large plateau region. Along 
the water’s edge on both sides of Mexico are narrow, sandy 
coastal plains. Thus we may divide the surface of Mexico 
into three parts, the coastal plain strips, the high mountain 
country and the central plateau region. 

The map will also show us that the northern boundary 
of the Torrid Zone, the Tropic of Cancer, passes across 
Mexico. This means that Mexico is partly in the Torrid 
Zone and partly in the North Temperate Zone. We should 

79 


80 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


expect to find a warm, moist climate, and the strips of 
coast do have hot, damp weather such as we find in all 
tropical countries. They are covered with heavy forests 
in which grow palms, banana trees, all sorts of tropical 
plants and the valuable mahogany and other hard wood 
trees of the hot lands. But as we climb the mountain 
ranges we soon find cooler weather, because the mountains 
are so high that even though they are only a short distance 
from the Equator, the air above them is cool. Among the 
mountains we find some very high peaks nearly always 
capped with snow. Two of these peaks are old volcanoes, 
Mt. Orizaba and Mt. Popocatapetl. Find these peaks on 
the. map. These mountains affect the rainfall just as those 
in the Western Highland region of our country affect it. 
Mexico is in the path of the northeast trade winds. These 
are winds which, during a large part of the year, blow 
from the Atlantic Ocean near the Equator. They are 
called trade winds because, when all trading ships used 
sails instead of engines, these steady winds were a great 
help to the sailors in crossing the ocean. Of course these 
winds coming from the ocean bring rain clouds with them. 
The high mountain range along the Gulf Coast of Mexico 
squeezes out the rain, giving the eastern slopes and coast 
plains a very moist climate. The same thing happens on 
the western side to the winds from the Pacific Ocean. The 
plateau region between the mountains is very dry because 
the mountains keep off the rain. In all tropical countries 
the seasons are different from ours. During the time when 
the trade winds stop, the people of Mexico have almost no 
rain. This time is known as the dry season. The period 
of heavy rains is called the wet season. The Mexicans 
do not know our four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn, 
and Winter, at all. In their place Mexico has its two 
seasons, the wet season and the dry season. 





o 

o 


= 

o 

z 










































































82 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


Mexico is so near the Equator that snow falls on only 
a few of its highest mountains. Very little rain falls in the 
central plateau region. The mountain slopes on the eastern 
and western sides of Mexico are very steep and most of the 
rain which falls there runs off at once. 

These facts will show us why Mexico has no large lakes 
or large important rivers such as we found in our own 
western highland country. The Mexican streams are 
small, rapid and rocky. They are not navigable for ships 



A Mexican village 


or boats of any great size. They should, however, furnish 
a large amount of water power if the Mexicans had the skill, 
energy and money to develop manufacturing. The fact 
that there are so few rivers large enough to accommodate 
ships has held back commerce in Mexico. We have 
learned in studying our own country that towns and cities 
grow up along the rivers. We have also learned that a 
cool climate makes people energetic and industrious. The 
hot, wet climate of the Mexican coasts and lower mountain 
slopes makes the people slow and lazy. When a Mexican 
is asked to do anything quickly, he will usually reply 




MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE CANAL ZONE 83 

Manana, which is a Spanish word meaning the same 
as our English word “to-morrow.” 

The people of Mexico are composed of three groups or 
classes. There are a few white people who are mostly 
foreigners, that is, people from Europe or from the United 
States. There are a great many Indians and then the 
largest group, the real Mexicans, who are partly of Spanish 
and partly of Indian blood. The foreign residents in Mexico 
cannot long stand the moist heat of the rainy season along 
the coast. During that part of the year most of them go 
up into the plateau region or to their country places on the 
higher slopes of the mountains. The greater part of the 
hard work in the forests, on the ranches and plantations, 
and in the mines of Mexico is done by Indians or the 
poorer Mexicans called peons. The Indians are the de¬ 
scendants of the original inhabitants of Mexico known as 
the Aztecs. 

The Aztecs were a civilized race of Indians who built 
cities, dug mines and had a well organized government in 
Mexico long before Columbus discovered America. They 
were conquered by the Spaniards under Cortez. Their 
cities were destroyed and the people made to work as 
slaves in the mines and on the plantations of their con¬ 
querors. Ruins of great temples and palaces built by the 
Aztecs may still be seen in many parts of Mexico. 

Some of the Mexicans are rich, but they are mostly 
indolent and careless. Because of the warm climate they 
do not care to work hard, but would rather live an easy 
life letting others do the hard work. Because of this lack 
of energy most of the large business affairs of the country 
are in the hands of rich Americans or Europeans. 

There are rich mines of silver, gold and copper in the 
mountains of Mexico and large fields of petroleum near the 
coast. Nearly all of these mines and oil wells are owned 


84 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


by foreigners who employ the poorer Mexicans and the 
Indians to work the mines for them. There are large 
forests of mahogany and rubber trees along the coasts. 
These too have been taken over by Americans or Europeans. 
Tropical fruits are found in the hot lowlands in large 
quantities. An extra fine quality of hemp called sisal, 
from which rope is made, is raised in tropical Mexico. 

On the high plateau between the mountains wheat, 
corn, beans and other plants of the temperate zones can 
be raised. Much of the plateau region is too dry for any¬ 
thing but pasture land. In some parts of it cattle raising 
is the chief occupation. Vanilla beans are an important 
article of trade in Mexico. They grow in large quantities 
in the tropical forests along the coast. On the lower slopes 
of the eastern mountains there are some coffee plantations 
where the coffee berries are raised and dried. We shall 
hear more about coffee when we are studying South America. 

One of the chief sources of trouble and revolutions in 
Mexico has been the granting of rights in mines and oil 
wells to foreigners, by the President of Mexico, who is 
elected by the people as in our own country. 

There are not many cities in Mexico. The capital, 
Mexico City, is situated on the high plateau nearly in the 
center of the country. It is on the site of the old Aztec 
City of Mexico. The climate of Mexico City is splendid. 
It is never very cold there, and yet the steamy heat of the 
lowlands never reaches it. Many of the white people from 
the coast towns spend the rainy season in Mexico City. 
The chief seaports of Mexico are Tampico and Vera Cruz 
on the Eastern or Gulf Coast, and Acapulco on the Pacific 
Coast. There is much more trade on the Gulf side than 
on the Pacific, so that Tampico and Vera Cruz are the two 
really important seaport towns. The exports from these 
cities are nearly all raw materials, hemp, gold and silver 


MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE CANAL ZONE 85 


ore, crude petroleum, tropical fruits, rubber, and mahogany 
timber. As we have seen, Mexico has almost no manu¬ 
facturing plants. 

Much of the transportation of material in Mexico is 
still done by pack trains. Long lines of donkeys or burros 
are loaded with heavy packs of material and then driven 
over the trail to the seacoast towns. There are some short 
railroads connecting the seaports with Mexico City. There 
is also a longer and better line known as the Mexican Cen¬ 
tral Railway. This line runs from the boundary of the 



Harbor of Vera Cruz, Mexico 


United States south through the central part of Mexico to 
Mexico City. It has branch lines extending beyond Mexico 
City to the South and to a few places east and west of 
the main line. This railway is very important in the trade 
of the United States with Mexico, because of the long 
distance from the boundary through the desert to the 
Mexican cities. 

The western mountains of Mexico, just across the United 
States boundary, are dry and barren like our states of 
Arizona and New Mexico. These mountains are inhabited 
by a wilder tribe of Indians, the Yaquis. The Yaqui 
Indians never acknowledged the right of the Mexican 








86 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


government to rule them and so have become outlaws. 
Many criminals both from Mexico and the United States 
have escaped into the western Mexican mountains. It is 
very hard to find any one in such a wild, barren region, 
so these criminals have formed bands who sometimes 
rob and murder travelers, making travel in this region 
dangerous. 

Just to the south of Mexico are several smaller republics, 
which we call the Central American countries. Their 
mountains are pushed even closer together than in Mexico 
and the distance between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans 
is shorter. These little countries have the same sort of 
surface and climate as Mexico. They are nearer to the 
Equator and so their rainy or wet season is even hotter and 
wetter than it is in Mexico. The forests of Central America 
are very thick. The towns along the coast are small and 
full of the kind of mosquito whose bite gives yellow fever. 
White men can scarcely live in these countries. The peo¬ 
ple are like the Mexicans, half Spanish and half Indian. 
They are fond of war and have frequent revolutions and 
little wars among the seven little republics that occupy 
this extremely narrow part of North America. About the 
only export of any value that comes to us from these little 
countries is tropical fruit. There is a company called the 
United Fruit Company that sends steamships from Phila¬ 
delphia, New York and other northern cities to these 
Central American countries to bring shiploads of fruit, 
mostly bananas, to our cities. You may have seen some 
of these ships unloading at the wharves. 

The interior of these Central American Republics is so 
thickly wooded and so filled with mosquitoes and fever 
that white men rarely venture to explore it. 

Hundreds of years ago, a Spanish explorer, named 
Balboa, climbed the mountains in the narrowest part of 


MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE CANAL ZONE 87 



this narrow part of our continent. From the peak on 
which he stood he looked south and saw a great ocean. 
It seemed to be even larger than the Atlantic which he had 
crossed. Because it lay to the south of the mountain ranges 
he named it the South Sea. We know it to-day as the 
Pacific Ocean. Your history will tell you how men searched 


Central American Bananas 

for a passage through our continent so that ships might 
sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The only way to go 
from one ocean to the other was to sail all the way around 
the southern point of South America known as Cape Horn. 
This was a very stormy, dangerous voyage, and one that 
took a great deal of time. After many attempts to find a 
passage through, people gave up the idea. Then some 
French people thought of digging a passage through the 
narrow strip of land that Balboa had crossed. The strip 



88 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


was called at that time the Isthmus of Darien. We call 
it the Isthmus of Panama. Fortunately the mountains 
are not so high there as in other parts of our Western High¬ 
land. There were lakes and rivers that would help in 
building a canal. The land along the rivers and lakes was 
swampy, covered with thick forests and filled with mosqui¬ 
toes. The Isthmus was so near the Equator that it had a 
very hot climate with the two seasons, wet and dry, of the 
tropical regions. During the rainy season it was so wet 
that people had great difficulty in living at all in the low¬ 
lands. Then the region was filled with the terrible disease 
known as yellow fever. In spite of these difficulties the French 
Company sent machines and men and material to the Isthmus 
and began work. The men worked hard. Then many 
became ill with the yellow fever. Thousands of them died 
and the rest were too ill to work. After a long struggle the 
French Company gave up the attempt to build the canal. 

Many years later the people of the Isthmus separated 
themselves from the South American country of which 
they were part. The new republic gave the United States 
government a strip of land running across the Isthmus 
from the town of Colon on the Northern or Atlantic side, 
to the town of Panama on the Southern or Pacific side. 
This strip of land, known as the Canal Zone, is ten miles 
wide. Through the center of the Canal Zone the United 
States has built the Panama Canal. Scientists had dis¬ 
covered that the mosquitoes that came from the swamps 
of the Isthmus were the cause of people taking yellow fever. 
The fever germs also live and grow in dirt and filth. 
The health experts of the United States Army were sent 
to the Isthmus to clean up the Canal Zone. They drained 
many of the swamps and covered the surface of the rest 
with oil which killed the young mosquitoes. Then they 
made the people clean up and burn the garbage and refuse 


MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE CANAL ZONE 89 


that lay all about. They tore down the old dirty houses 
that were filled with vermin, and built new, clean ones. 
They made every one put screens on his doors and windows 
to keep out insects. In a short time the Canal Zone was 
clear of fever and became a healthful, pleasant place in 
which to live and work. 

The United States engineers had better tools and more 
improved machinery than the French Company. Then, 



In the Panama Canal 


too, the French Company was composed of private people, 
while the Americans had the wealth and power of the 
United States Government behind them. The United 
States was successful in building the canal through the 
Isthmus and to-day ships can pass through from the 
Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean instead of going all 
the way around Cape Horn. The trip through the canal 
takes about eight or ten hours while the trip around Cape 




90 


THE REMINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


Horn took several weeks. Not only American vessels but 
those of all nations use the Canal. In order to help pay 
for the Canal all ships passing through are charged toll, 
just as cars are charged toll on some of our bridges. 

The building of the Panama Canal has had a very 
important effect on the commerce of the United States. 
It has greatly shortened the distance from San Francisco 
and other Pacific ports to Philadelphia, New York and 
other places on the Atlantic Coast. As a result much more 
merchandise is now shipped between these places by boats. 
The boats carry goods more cheaply than the railroads, 
so the change in transportation is a great help to com¬ 
merce. 

The canal has also brought our seaports into closer 
relations with places on the western coast of South America 
and other ports on the Pacific Ocean. It has greatly helped 
the trade of Europe with western South America and has 
probably been the means of saving many ships from being 
wrecked in the stormy passage round Cape Horn. 

This little strip of land, known as the Canal Zone, is 
one of the most important colonial possessions of the United 
States. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE WEST INDIES—HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 

You have learned in your history that Columbus, when 
he sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492, was trying to 
find a route to India. You have also learned that he first 
landed on a little island in the Caribbean Sea southeast of 
North America. He and his men believed this island to 
be near India. The islands in the Indian Ocean, Java, 
Sumatra, Borneo and others, had already been found and 
were known as the India Islands or Indies. After Colum¬ 
bus’ voyage they were called the East India Islands or 
East Indies and the new group were called West Indies. 

There are several of these islands lying southeast of 
our country in the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea. 
The largest island, Cuba, is just south and southeast of 
Florida. It is a long narrow island with a range of low 
mountains running the length of it. These mountains slope 
down to low coastal plains on both sides. Like all the other 
islands in the group Cuba has a tropical climate, that is, 
it is very warm there with a great deal of rain. The people 
of all the West Indies are, like the Mexicans, Spanish or of 
mixed Spanish, Indian and Negro blood. They speak the 
Spanish language. They are mostly engaged in agriculture. 
The warm climate and rich soil of the coastal plains produce 
a great variety of tropical fruits and other products of the 
hot countries. The most important crops raised by the 
Cubans are sugar and tobacco. About one-fourth of all 
the sugar used in the world is raised in Cuba. Most of it 

91 


92 THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 

is shipped to the United States, although during the years 
following the'World War Cuba sent a great deal of sugar 
to Europe. For a long while all of it was sent out as raw 
sugar. Now there are some refineries on the island but 
most of the sugar is still sent to the great refineries in 
Philadelphia and Baltimore to be made into the sugar 
that we use in our homes. 



On a sugar plantation 


Cuban tobacco is of a very fine quality, and the words 
“Clear Havana” on a cigar box are accepted as a guarantee 
of the high grade of the tobacco used. 

The chief city of Cuba is Havana on the northwestern 
coast of the island. 

Just east of Cuba is the island of Haiti or Santo Domingo. 
This is divided into two little republics inhabited almost 
entirely by negroes. These negroes are the descendants 
of slaves brought to Haiti years ago by the Spaniards. 
The surface and climate of Haiti are much like those of 




THE WEST INDIES—HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 93 

Cuba, and its natural products are the same. The people 
of Haiti have never had a chance to become educated. 
Their ancestors were slaves and since they became free 
they have been separated from the rest of the world. As 
a result they are ignorant and superstitious and have never 
made much progress in civilized ways of living. 

The next island in the chain is Porto Rico, which belongs 
to the United States. At first all these islands belonged 
to Spain. The Spaniards claimed them because of their 



Morro Castle and Havana Harbor 

discovery by Columbus and their settlement by the early 
Spanish adventurers. Spain gradually lost most of them 
by wars with other countries until only Cuba and Porto 
Rico were left under Spanish rule. At the close of the war 
between Spain and the United States, in 1898, Cuba was 
given her independence, and Porto Rico was given up to 
the United States. Cuba is now a republic with a govern¬ 
ment like ours. Porto Rico is a territory of the United 
States like Alaska, with a Governor appointed by the 
President of the United States and a territorial legislature 
elected by the people. 




04 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


As we said before, the surface and climate of all these 
islands are very much alike. Porto Rico has the same hilly 
surface and tropical climate that we found in Cuba. The 
people are of Spanish or mixed blood and speak mostly 
Spanish. Since Porto Rico has become United States 
territory, better schools have been established, many of 
them having American teachers. English as well as 
Spanish is taught and many of the people are learning to 
use the English language. Porto Rico, like Cuba, is an 
agricultural island. Sugar and tobacco are raised in large 
quantities. On the slopes of the hills there are many coffee 
plantations. The raising of coffee is encouraged by the 
government and since the coming of the Americans the 
methods of agriculture of the Porto Ricans have been much 
improved, and large crops of coconuts, pineapples, oranges 
and grape fruit are raised. The chief town and seaport of 
the island is San Juan on the northern coast. 

South of Cuba lies the island of Jamaica, belonging to 
Great Britain. This island is much like the other West 
Indies but smaller than Cuba, Haiti or Porto Rico. It 
also raises sugar to some extent but its chief products are 
bananas and other tropical fruits. Its port is Kingston. 

Stretching east of Porto Rico into the Atlantic Ocean 
is a group of little islands, some so small as to be no more 
than little specks on the water. The three islands of this 
group nearest to Porto Rico are known as the Virgin Islands. 
These used to belong to Denmark but a few years ago the 
United States bought them. 

These little islands are known chiefly for two things. 
The harbor of St. Thomas, the port of the Virgin Islands, 
is one of the best in the West Indies. It is large and well 
protected by natural breakwaters. It makes a most 
excellent place for a naval station for United States war 
vessels when in the Caribbean Sea. The other important 


THE WEST INDIES—HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 95 

fact about the Virgin Islands is their production of bay rum. 
Most of the bay rum used in the world is made from the 
leaves of the bay trees which grow all over these little, 
rocky islands. Along the narrow coasts there are some 
fertile strips where good crops of sugar and cotton may be 
raised. But the chief value of these three islands, St. 
Croix, St. Thomas and St. John, is the wonderful harbor 
of St. Thomas. 

While we are studying about territories of the United 
States, we must not forget two other groups of islands 
which belong to us and have this same territorial govern¬ 
ment. These groups are the Hawaiian Islands and the 
Philippine Islands. They do not belong to our continent 
geographically, but because of their close relations to the 
United States we shall study them as a part of it. 

The Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands lie far out in the 
Pacific Ocean about halfway between North America and 
Asia. They are the tops of old volcanoes projecting above 
the water of the ocean. Around these peaks the coral 
animals have built up ridges of coral until some of the 
islands are quite large. The surface of the islands is 
mountainous. The climate is wonderfully mild. Tropical 
plants grow because there is never any cold weather, but 
the weather is not so hot and moist as that of some 
tropical regions. The surrounding waters of the Pacific 
Ocean keep the temperature fairly even all the year round. 

The people of the Hawaiian Islands belong to the Brown 
or Malay Race. They are good looking, intelligent people, 
though not very industrious because of the warm climate. 
For many years they had a kingdom of their own, governed 
by a ruler of their own race. In 1898 they asked the United 
States Government to annex them or make them part of 
our territory. Since that time these islands have been a 
territory of the United States like Alaska and Porto Rico. 


96 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


There is much fertile soil along the coasts and upon the 
lower mountain slopes of the Hawaiian Islands. Here 
large crops of sugar, cotton, pineapples and tropical fruits 
are raised. The plantation owners are mostly Americans. 
A great many Japanese laborers have been brought to the 
islands to work on the sugar and pineapple plantations. 

In recent years great factories have been built where 
the sugar is refined and others in which the pineapples are 
made into the canned Hawaiian pineapple we see in the 
grocery stores here. 

The beautiful scenery and mild, pleasant climate of the 
Hawaiian Islands has made them a popular resort for 
tourists, especially in the winter. Their location, midway 
in the Pacific Ocean between North America and Asia 
and the excellent harbor of Honolulu have made them a 
stopping place for all the important Pacific steamship lines. 
They are also valuable as coaling and cable stations. 

Honolulu is a beautiful city with pretty homes and large 
public buildings. Under American rule good schools have 
been established, better methods of agriculture introduced, 
and the people of the islands have become prosperous. 

The other territory mentioned, the Philippine Islands, 
is even farther away from our continent. The Philippine 
Islands are a large group located off the eastern coast of 
Asia, in the Pacific Ocean, south of Japan. There are in 
this group several large islands and many small ones. This 
group formerly belonged to Spain, but like Porto Pico, were 
given up to the United States in 1898 at the end of the 
Spanish-American War. The islands have a rough surface 
composed of ranges of mountains broken by river valleys 
and with narrow coastal plains along the sea. The climate 
is tropical. They have two seasons, the wet season and 
the dry season, and the average Philippine weather is hot, 
moist, and unhealthful for white people. Most of the sur- 


THE WEST INDIES—HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 97 



face of the islands is covered with a thick tropical forest 
or jungle. 

The people of the Philippine Islands are of the Malay 
or Brown Race like those of Hawaii. Most of them have 
become civilized through their contact with the white people, 
but in the mountain forests of some of the larger islands the 
Filipinos, as they are called, are still savages. This is par- 


Escolta street, Manila 

ticularly true of the tribe called the Moros who live in the 
interior forests of the largest island, Mindanao. 

Some, sugar, tobacco and cotton are raised in the 
Philippines and great quantities of hemp from which ropes 
are made. This hemp, known as Manila Hemp, is con¬ 
sidered the finest in the world. 

The chief city of the Philippine group is Manila, located 
in the northern part of the islands on a good harbor called 
Manila Bay. It was here that Admiral Dewey won his 
famous victory over the Spanish Fleet during the war 
between the United States and Spain. 








98 


THE REMAINDER OF NORTH AMERICA 


The different tribes of Filipinos have each a language of 
their own, but nearly all of them speak Spanish as a result 
of their contact with the Spaniards, who ruled them for 
hundreds of years* Many of them have learned to speak 
English since the islands became a United States territory. 



Filipino boats, Manila Harbor 


The resources of the Philippine Islands are, very largely, 
undeveloped. The United States is making every effort 
to develop them and to improve conditions there. It is a 
hard task because of the very unhealthful climate, the thick 
tropical jungle and the ignorance of the natives in the 
mountain regions. 






PART III.—SOUTH AMERICA 


CHAPTER IX 

PHYSICAL FEATURES AND REGIONS OF SOUTH 
AMERICA 

The map of our continent will show you that it is 
divided into two great parts which we may call Grand 
Divisions. The Northern part in which we live and which 
we have been studying is called North America. The 
Southern part, known as South America, used to be joined 
to North America by the Isthmus of Panama. Now the 
Panama Canal separates the two parts. South America 
is not directly south from North America. It is really 
southeast. If we hold a ruler on the map so that its edge 
runs directly south from Philadelphia we shall find a large 
part of South America will be east of the line. We may 
also notice that the western coast of South America is only 
about as far west as the middle of North America. 

The Equator crosses South America near the northern 
part. If we look farther south we shall find the Tropic of 
Capricorn also crossing South America. So South America 
lies in two zones, the Torrid Zone and the South Temperate 
Zone. We usually think of South America as a hot region. 
This is because the larger part of it is in the Torrid Zone 
and near the Equator. But there is also a part of South 
America in the South Temperate Zone where the people 
have the four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, 

99 



100 


SOUTH AMERICA 


as we have them. This part of South America reaches 
down almost to the South Frigid Zone and the extreme 
southern part is bitterly cold. 

We have read in several chapters about the great 
Western Highland of our continent. We have found this 
highland in the United States, in Canada and in Mexico. 
Now our map will show us that it extends through the whole 
length of South America to Cape Horn. In North America 
the Western Highlands are called the Rocky Mountains. 
In South America they are called the Andes Mountains. 

We will find the Andes Mountains much like the Rocky 
Mountains. They come close to the Pacific Ocean in South 
America, just as the Rockies do in North America. The 
little strip of land between the Western Highland and the 
Pacific Ocean is narrow in both grand divisions. The 
Andes Mountains stop the rain clouds from the Pacific 
just as the Rocky Mountains do. Both the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains and the Andes are very high, new, sharply peaked 
mountains. The Andes are even a little higher in some 
places than the Rockies. To the east of each highland 
region is the great Central Plain of the Grand Division. 

South America also has an Eastern Highland region, 
the Brazilian Mountains. These mountains are not so 
high nor so long as our Appalachian Highland. They run 
in the same general direction as the Appalachians from 
northeast to southwest. This highland is so short, however, 
that at both its northern end and its southern end the 
Central Plain region passes it and reaches the Atlantic Coast. 

Across the northeastern part of South America is another 
short, low highland running from east to west. These 
mountains are called the Mountains of Guiana. 

In North America we found the Great Central Plain 
region sloping either to the north or to the south. It was 
drained by two river systems, the Mississippi-Missouri 


PHYSICAL FEATURES AND REGIONS OF SOUTH AMERICA 101 


system and the Hudson Bay-Mackenzie system. Because 
of the great height of the Andes Mountains and the small¬ 
ness of the Eastern Highland the Great Central Plain of 
South America slopes to the east. It is drained by three 
large river systems. These are the Orinoco River system 
in the north, the Amazon River system in the north central 
part near the, Equator, and the La Plata River system in 
the south-central part. The location of these three river 
systems divides the Great Central Plain into three parts, 
each with a name of its own. The plains around the 
valley of the Orinoco River are called the Llanos; those in 
the valley of the Amazon River are called the Selvas; and 
the grassy plains in the valley of the La Plata River are 
called the Pampas. We shall find when we study these 
regions more closely that they are at different distances 
from the Equator. We shall also find that the mountains 
and rivers affect these regions in different ways. So we 
may expect to find the climate and productions of each 
region different from those in the other regions. 


CHAPTER X 


THE ANDES HIGHLAND REGION 

We have already read of the vast mountain system of 
the Andes, higher than our own Rocky Mountains, which 
extends the whole length of South America. We have seen 
how much it is like the Rocky Mountain system in many 
ways. There are still other similarities between these two 
parts of the western highlands of our continent. Like the 
Rockies, many of the Andes Mountains are snow-capped 
throughout the year. Some of these are the old volcanoes, 
Mts. Aconcagua, Cotopaxi and Chimborazo. The melting 
of the winter snow below the snow line and the heavy 
rainfall on the western slopes makes many lakes among 
these mountains. One of these lakes, Lake Titicaca, 
is at a higher elevation than any other large lake in the 
world. 

Among the parallel ranges of the Andes are valleys 
like those in the Rockies, with fertile soil but almost no 
rainfall. If these valleys could be irrigated like those of 
our western region they would be just as fertile as ours. 
In the central part of Chile there is a valley that is so fertile 
and productive that it is frequently compared to the 
Imperial Valley of California. 

In all mountain regions the people engage for the most 
part in mining. This is true of the Andes Mountains. 
When the earliest Spanish explorers came to Peru they 
found a civilized race of people there called the Incas. 
These people were much the same as the Aztecs of Mexico. 

102 


THE ANDES HIGHLAND REGION 


103 


The Spaniards found that the Incas had great treasures 
of gold and silver. They wore gold and silver ornaments 
and their temples and palaces were richly decorated with 
these precious metals. The Spaniards conquered these 
people as they did the Aztecs in Mexico, but they could 
never make the Incas tell where their gold and silver mines 
were located. 

Many rich mines of gold, silver and copper have been 
found in the Andes Mountains of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, 
where the mountain system reaches its greatest width. 
There are still stories of unusually rich mines that were 
known to the Incas and have not since been found. 

We have learned that the Equator passes through this 
region of South America. We have also learned that many 
of the Andes Mountains here are so high that they are 
always snowcapped. On some of these peaks we may have 
the unusual experience of passing through the weather 
conditions of three zones on the same mountain. At the 
base of the mountain we will be in the hot, thick tropical 
forest of the Torrid Zone. As we climb higher we leave 
the hot weather and the palm trees and brightly colored 
birds and butterflies behind us. We pass through forests 
very much like those of the Temperate Zone. Then we 
reach the timber line and come out on the bare rocks. 
If we can go still higher we soon reach the snow line and 
find conditions like those of the Frigid Zone. 

In the high plateaus of the Andes region plants and 
animals are few. These plateaus are cut off from the rain 
winds by the high peaks. The soil is dry and there is so 
little water that few plants or animals can live there. 
Because of the elevation of these regions the air is thin, 
dry and cool. There are some large birds that live among 
the mountains. Large eagles and great vultures called 
condors have their nests on the rocky peaks. Occasion- 


104 


SOUTH AMERICA 


ally a jaguar, a large spotted cat-like animal, wanders 
from the tropical forests at the base of the mountains and 
reaches the plateau country. The most important animals 
found here are two animals that are something like the 
camel of the Eastern Continent. They can go without 
water for a long time and can live on the scanty pasture 
that grows on the high, dry plateaus. Their feet are so 
made that they can easily climb the steep, narrow mountain 
trails. They are very strong and easily tamed. The 



A llama pack train in the Andes 


smaller one of these two animals is called the alpaca. It 
is covered with long, straight, silky hair from which the 
cloth called alpaca or mohair is made. Large numbers 
of alpacas are raised and kept in the Andes region for their 
hair. 

The other larger animal is called the llama. It is 
much like the alpaca except that it is covered with wool 
very much like a sheep, and it is much stronger than the 
alpaca. The llama is used in the Andes Mountains to 
carry heavy loads up and down the trails. When mining 
was first begun in the Andes region there were no railroads. 




THE ANDES HIGHLAND REGION 


10 % 


There are only a very few now because the mountains are 
so high and steep that it is very difficult and very expensive 
to build railroads there. The people who work the mines 
need clothing, food, tools, machinery and explosives. All 
these have to be brought up from the seacoast. Much of 
this material is brought up the trails by caravans of llamas. 
They carry back the ore; gold, silver and copper that is 
dug out of the mines. 

This lack of easy transportation is one of the difficulties 
that have kept the rich mines of the Andes from producing 
larger quantities. Another difficulty is the high altitude of 
the mines. On such high mountains the air is very thin. 
This makes it hard for men to breathe and also affects 
their hearts. No one can work as hard at such an altitude 
as in the lower places where the air is heavier. 

Farther south in the Andes Highland, in Chile, we find 
a high plateau so completely shut in from the rain winds 
that it is a desert. This desert has never been irrigated 
so no one knows whether its soil is fertile or not. This 
desert, however, is one of the most important regions of 
South America. There are larger deposits of a chemical 
material called nitrate here in the Chilean desert than 
anywhere else in all the world so far as is known. This 
nitrate is necessary in making fertilizers for the farmers 
of the world to use in enriching the soil. It is also nec¬ 
essary in the manufacturing of explosives. During the 
World War, Chile had almost entire control of the world’s 
supply of nitrate. The importance of the nitrate industry 
is so great that the greatest railroad of South America has 
been built into this region. It is called the Trans-Andean 
Railway because it crosses the Andes Mountains. It is the 
only railway that does cross them. 

If we look at our map of South America we will see that 
Chile is a very narrow, very long strip of land along the 


SOUTH AMERICA 


*06 

western or Pacific side of South America. It is so long 
that it stretches from the hot central part of South America, 
south through the temperate regions and down to the cold 
southern point of the continent. It is narrow because 
it is shut off on the east by the great wall of the Andes. 
It includes the very narrow Pacific coastal strip with its 



Nitrate mines in Chile 


heavy rainfall and some of the interior valleys of the 
Western Highland. 

Some of these, in the lower western part of the high¬ 
land, receive sufficient rainfall to make them fertile. We 
have already read of the valley which is like California’s 
Imperial Valley. These fertile valleys produce a great 
variety of crops, from the fruits of the Torrid Zone to the 
grain of the temperate regions. 

Others of these valleys or plateaus lying farther up into 
the mountains are cut off from the moist Pacific winds and 
left as deserts, like the nitrate desert of Northern Chile. 



THE ANDES HIGHLAND REGION 


107 


There is considerable cattle raising in the temperate 
parts of Chile. 

There are few important cities in Chile. Santiago is the 
capital, located about in the center of its long, narrow strip 
of country. The most important seaport is Valparaiso. 
Another port which has considerable importance is Iquique. 
It is the port through which the nitrate trade is carried on. 



Harbor of Valparaiso 

Because of its varied climate and the importance of its 
nitrate beds to the rest of the world, Chile is more pro¬ 
gressive than some of her neighbors to the north, par¬ 
ticularly Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. The people are the 
descendants of the original Spanish settlers and speak the 
Spanish language, as do most South Americans. They have 
the excitable temperament of all people of Spanish blood. 
For many years after the South American Republics over- 





108 


SOUTH AMERICA 


threw the Spanish rule and won their independence there 
was an almost continuous series of wars among the new 
countries. This was particularly true of Chile and her 
larger neighbor to the East, Argentina. Their long series 
of quarrels was over the boundary line between them. 
At last an understanding was reached and both nations 
agreed to fight no more. To seal their agreement they 
joined in erecting on the boundary line away up along the 
Andes Mountains an immense statue of Christ. This 
statue is known as the Christ of the Andes. Since that 
agreement no war between Chile and Argentine has ever 
been declared. This shows again how understanding of 
each other will help nations to live in peace. 

There is one other important part of the western high¬ 
land region of South America. In the narrow strip of land 
along the Pacific in Ecuador we find a dense tropical forest. 
In this forest are trees on which grow long thin beans. 
These are cacao trees. From the beans which grow on these 
trees are made the foods which we know as chocolate and 
cocoa. For many years this region of Ecuador furnished 
most of the cacao beans for the world. Now, however, a 
large part of the supply comes from another part of South 
America, the valley of the Orinoco River in the northern 
part of the grand division. We shall study more about 
this Orinoco region in another chapter. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE ORINOCO VALLEY REGION 

We have learned how the great central plain of South 
America is divided into three parts by the valleys of its 
three great rivers. If we look for these on the map and begin 
at the north, the first one we shall find is the Orinoco. 
The Orinoco River rises in the high region of the Andes 
Mountains on the west and flows in a general easterly 
direction through the northern part of South America. 
After crossing Venezuela it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. 
This part of South America is so near the Equator that we 
know it has a hot climate. It is in the path of the rain 
winds from the Atlantic Ocean. The mountains of Guiana 
just southeast of the Orinoco Valley make the rainfall heavy 
in this region. 

So we find here a tropical forest. In this forest are 
cacao trees just as we found them in Ecuador on the other 
side of the Andes. Most of these cacao trees, however, 
are not growing wild in the forest but are cultivated on plan¬ 
tations. Some of these plantations are owned by people 
from the United States or Europe, as plantations were in 
Mexico. The workers on the cacao plantations are mostly 
Indians or the poorer South Americans, many of whom are 
partly of Spanish and partly of Indian blood. The climate 
in the valley is so hot and moist that white men cannot 
do hard work here. 

Remember that all our chocolate and cocoa are made 
from the beans of the cacao tree. Now think of the tremen- 

109 


110 


SOUTH AMERICA 


dous amount of chocolate and cocoa you see used around 
you here in the United States. You can now understand 
how important the production of cacao is to us. 

The two cacao regions of South America do not produce 
all of the world’s supply. Along the western coast of 
Africa there are cacao plantations. These have grown 
very rapidly in the last few years and the West African 
supply of cacao is now quite large. In a few years it will 
probably furnish more cacao beans than any other place 
in the world. 

It is quite interesting to notice how near to the Equator 
all these cacao regions are. What does this tell you about 
the conditions needed for cacao trees to grow? 

At the western end of the Orinoco Valley near the source 
of the river, we come to the foothills of the Andes High¬ 
land. On the slopes of these hills are many coffee plan¬ 
tations. Coffee is made from berries which grow on large 
bushes. You have seen these berries in the grocery store. 
But before you see them, they have been roasted to dry 
them and give them a dark brown color. When you buy 
loose coffee the grocer puts the brown berries into a mill 
and grinds them. Sometimes you may buy coffee that has 
already been ground and put up in packages. 

The coffee bushes need a warm climate with plenty of 
moisture. But they will not grow well in a place where 
the moisture stays too long on the ground or where the 
ground is too swampy. The best growth of coffee bushes 
is always found in a place where there is plenty of rainfall 
which drains off rapidly. So the hillsides of a hot moist 
country are the best places for raising coffee. 

The town of La Guayra in Venezuela is the center of the 
coffee raising industry of the Orinoco Region. 

On both sides of the tropical forest belt along the 
Orinoco River are the grassy plains called the llanos. These 


THE ORINOCO VALLEY REGION 


111 


plains would make excellent pasture land for cattle, sheep 
and horses if they did not have so hot a climate. Cattle, 
sheep and horses are all animals belonging to the Temperate 
Zone regions and cannot thrive in the heat and moisture 
of the Torrid Zone. So we find no great ranches in the 
llanos as we found them in the grassy plains of our own 
country and Canada. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE AMAZON RIVER REGION 

The middle division of the Central plain of South 
America is formed by the valley of the Amazon River. 
The Amazon is one of the world’s greatest rivers. It is 
not so long as the Missouri-Mississippi system of North 
America, but is very wide. It flows almost parallel to the 
Equator and nearly along that line as you can see by the 
map. It has a great number of tributaries, of which the 
largest are the Rio Madeira and Rio Negro. All of these 
tributaries as well as the Amazon itself are in the center of 
the Torrid Zone. They receive the tremendously heavy 
rainfall of the tropics because there are no high mountains 
on the eastern side of South America to stop the rain 
brought from the Atlantic Ocean by the trade winds. The 
heavy rainfall and the great number of large tributary rivers 
give the Amazon the largest volume of water of any river 
in the world. The waters of the Amazon carry down great 
quantities of mud. The river has built up a large delta 
at its mouth and the muddy water can be seen far out at sea. 

Because of its location in the Torrid Zone and the con¬ 
sequent heavy rainfall the Amazon does not flow through 
an open prairie country like the Mississippi. Instead it 
is in the center of one of the thickest tropical forests, or 
jungles, in the world. The great trees overhanging its 
banks are hung with mosses; giant ferns, as tall as small 
trees, grow up from the moist earth; and enormous vines 
creep over all the shrubs and trees. The forest is so thick 

112 


THE AMAZON RIVER REGION 


113 


that in many places the sunlight never comes through the 
ioliage to the river or its banks. We might sail along parts 
of the Amazon on a bright, clear day and find ourselves 
always in a kind of twilight darkness because of the thick¬ 
ness of the forest. The river is the only road here. The 
forest on either bank is too thick for any road to be made 
through it. Brightly colored parrots and other birds fly 
through the trees. Even the butterflies and other insects 
are much more brightly colored and seem to grow much 
larger than those we are used to in our temperate zone. 
Thousands of monkeys swing and chatter above the stream. 
If we were to force our way a little distance into the forest 
we should likely meet with fierce jaguars, or the great 
snakes called boa constrictors. In the small open spaces 
where trees have decayed and fallen we might see the 
great ant eaters turning over the fallen logs in search of 
the food which gives them their name. Or we might meet 
a tapir, looking something like a large pig, with a nose 
almost like a small elephant’s trunk. The Amazon forest 
is full of animals and many of them are ferocious. 

Many of the trees and plants in this thick forest are 
very useful to men. Cocoanut palms and many other 
varieties of palm trees grow in great numbers. The cacao 
trees, like those of Ecuador and the Orinoco region, are here 
also. Bamboo trees, from which many useful things are 
made, and Brazil nut trees are all along the river banks. 
Many of the larger trees are mahogany or rosewood trees. 
The finest furniture is made from the wood of these hard¬ 
wood trees. The wood of many other trees of the Amazon 
forest is used in making dyes. So these trees are called 
dyewoods. 

The most important tree of all the Amazon forest is the 
rubber tree. For many years almost all the rubber used 
in the world came from the wild rubber trees in the Amazon 


114 


SOUTH AMERICA 


forests. The more civilized natives tapped the rubber 
trees, cutting a small hole in the bark. Through this hole 
the sap oozed out. As it came into the air it hardened into 
a lump which could be cut off. These lumps of hardened 
sap are called crude rubber. Traders from the coast come 
up the river in boats to collect from the natives all the 



Rubber gatherers 


crude rubber they can get. It is then shipped from Para, 
at the mouth of the Amazon, to all parts of the world. The 
ignorant natives often killed the rubber trees by drawing 
out the sap too frequently, so that wild rubber from the 
Amazon forests was becoming scarce. At the same time 
the world was using more rubber every year. How many 
different uses of rubber do you know? The men in the 




THE AMAZON RIVER REGION 


115 


rubber trade saw that it was necessary to begin cultivating 
rubber trees to increase the supply. It was impossible to 
have plantations along the Amazon. Why? There were 
other places in the world with the right kind of climate for 
rubber trees and where the ground could be cleared to make 
room for rubber plantations. One of these places was the 
eastern coast of Mexico. Another place was the region at 
the mouth of the Congo River in Africa. Many rubber 
plantations have been established in Southeastern Asia. 
So the Amazon V.alley is no longer the most important 
rubber region of the world, although the wild trees there 
still yield a large supply of crude rubber. 

The people of the Amazon Valley are mostly Indians. 
The climate is so hot and moist that few white men or 
even people of mixed Indian and Spanish blood can live 
there. The tribes of Indians living along the lower Amazon 
have become partly civilized and many of them are rubber 
gatherers. The rubber gatherers live in villages of little 
huts on the banks of the river. They are friendly to white 
men and make their living by trading their lumps of crude 
rubber to the collectors who come up the river. Farther 
up the Amazon where it is too narrow and too densely 
overgrown for boats to push through there are more savage 
tribes. These Indians are unfriendly to white men and 
little is known of their ways of life. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE LA PLATA RIVER REGION 

The third division of the great central plain of South 
America is the one farthest south in and around the valley 
of the La Plata River. This region is a great grassy plain 
called the Pampas. The northern end of the Pampas is 
in Brazil; part of it is in the two little countries Paraguay 
and Uruguay; but most of it is in Argentina. The map 
will show you that most of this region is in the South 
Temperate Zone. This means that the Pampas country 
has four seasons like ours, instead of the two seasons of 
tropical countries. The great Andes Mountain system 
to the west keeps off the rain clouds from the Pacific and 
the plain is so wide in Northern Argentina and Southern 
Brazil that not much of the Atlantic storms can reach the 
western side of the plains. The eastern side of the Pampas 
along the valleys of the La Plata and its tributary the 
Paraguay River has plenty of rainfall. The surface is 
slightly rolling like our prairie country. These facts show 
us that the Pampas region has a surface and climate just 
about like the surface and climate of our central plain. 
The river valleys with plenty of moisture and a rich soil 
are like our prairie region in the valleys of the Mississippi 
and its tributaries. In the western part near the Andes 
the soil is too dry for anything but pasturage, like the 
great plains region of the United States just east of the 
Rocky Mountains. There is one great difference. The 
Pampas region is on the opposite side of the Equator from 

116 


THE LA PLATA RIVER REGION 117 

our central plain and so the seasons are the opposite of ours. 
It has the four seasons as we do, but our winter is its sum¬ 
mer, our spring its autumn, and so on. 

The people of the Pampas country follow the same 
occupations as those of our central plain. The rich soil 
of the eastern river valleys has been turned into a great 
wheat region. Here, as in our western central states, there 
are great wheat farms with thousands of acres of land. 
Much more wheat is raised here than the people of the 
country can use. Many shiploads of wheat are exported 
from Argentina every year. During the World War 
Argentina’s wheat fields did a great deal to feed the armies 
and people of Europe. Even in peace times wheat is one 
of the principal exports of Argentina. There are many 
large parts of these fertile valleys still unsettled so that 
wheat raising in Argentina can grow to cover much more 
land than it does at the present time. 

The temperate climate of the La Plata wheat country, 
the rich soil and the smallness of the population are 
attracting many settlers from Europe. A great many of 
these new settlers are from the South of Europe, principally 
from Italy. Spanish, the language spoken by the people 
of Argentina, is not hard for Italians to learn and the mild 
climate of the La Plata valley is somewhat like that of 
Italy. So the Italians feel much at home in the Pampas 
region. 

Besides the settlers, many rich Europeans have bought 
wheat and pasture lands in the Pampas. Their money is 
helping to develop the resources of this new country and to 
build it up. 

The dry, grass covered, western part of the Pampas is an 
excellent place for cattle raising. Here we find great 
ranches, “ ranchos ” the South Americans call them, like 
those in our western plains. The cowboys ride after the 


118 


SOUTH AMERICA 


great herds of cattle, brand them, round them up and drive 
the fat ones to the railway just as our plainsmen do. If 
you were to ride through the western Pampas region at the 
season of the year when the cattle are gathered into herds, 
you might well think you were in western Texas or Wyo¬ 
ming. The chief difference you would notice is the language 
of the cowboys and ranchmen. Cattle raising on the Pam¬ 
pas is becoming the most important industry of South 
America. Meat packing firms from the United States 
have built stock yards and packing houses in Argentina 



Branding cattle in Argentina 


and in Brazil. Here the same processes are carried on that 
you read of in Chicago and Omaha in our country. The 
cattle are killed, cut up, parts of them canned, other parts 
frozen and the meat placed on ships to be sent to other 
parts of the world. 

Besides the meat itself beef extract is made and exported. 
Bones to be made into fertilizer are also shipped to other 
parts of the world and thousands of cattle hides are sent 
to the United States to be made into leather. 

The people of Argentina and the southern Pampas 
region are among the most energetic and progressive in 




THE LA PLATA RIVER REGION 



111) 

Soutli America. Doubtless this is because the climate of 
this region is cooler and dryer. In the parts of South 
America near the Equator the climate is so hot and moist 
that the people lose their energy and must be satisfied to 
lead quiet lives that seem lazy to us. In the southern 
Pampas, however, the four seasons give a welcome change 
of weather, the colder winters make the people energetic 
and they are much more like the people of the United States. 


Public park in Buenos Aires 

The capital and chief city of Argentina is Buenos Aires. 
This beautiful city is sometimes called the Paris or the New 
York of South America. It is located on a good harbor 
at the mouth of the La Plata River. The streets of Buenos 
Aires are wide, clean, well lighted and well paved. It has 
beautiful public buildings, good schools and beautiful 
parks. In Buenos Aires are stockyards and packing houses 
of firms in the United States. 





120 


SOUTH AMERICA 


There are splendid wharves to which come great steamers 
from all over the world. 

Another important city of the Pampas region is Monte¬ 
video on the La Plata River at the mouth of the Paraguay 
River. It is the capital of Uruguay, one of the smaller 
South American countries. It is also an important port 
from which are shipped wheat and cattle products. 

The extreme southern part of the Pampas region is so 
near to the South Frigid Zone that it is very cold. Not 
many people live there as there are few ways for them to 
make a living. 

Because of its temperate climate and rich soil the Pam¬ 
pas region may some day be as rich and important as our 
own cattle-raising states. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE EASTERN HIGHLAND REGION OF SOUTH AMERICA 

The Eastern Highland region of South America is 
sometimes called the Brazilian Highland because it lies 
entirely within the borders of Brazil. We have already 
learned that this highland is low and short compared to 
the Eastern Highland of North America. Yet in this 
highland and its piedmont or foothill region are centered 
some of the most important industries of Brazil. As in all 
mountain countries we find mining here. . 

The mines of the Eastern Highland of South America 
are much less important than those of our Appalachian 
Mountains. Some gold mining is carried on and there are 
important diamond mines. Between the mountains and 
the sea there is a narrow coastal plain. In the northern 
part of this plain there are large cotton plantations and 
the coast city of Pernambuco is quite an important cotton 
port. A little farther south along the coast we will find 
sugar plantations. The city of Bahia is the port of the 
sugar industry of Brazil and exports a considerable amount 
of sugar. 

It is in the foothills of the Brazilian mountains that we 
must look for one of the most important industries of 
Brazil. This is the coffee industry. The hills back of 
Rio Janeiro, Brazil’s capital city, and Santos, a little farther 
south, are covered with coffee plantations. This region 
is far enough south of the Equator to escape some of the 
intense heat and moisture of the Amazon region, yet it has 

121 


122 


SOUTH AMERICA 


a warm climate with no winter cold. The rich soil of the 
hillsides receives plenty of rain and there is slope enough 
to give the drainage that we learned the coffee bushes or 
trees must have. The coffee berries are gathered, separated 



Drying coffee in Brazil 


from the pulp or hull which covers them and spread out 
in great trays to dry in the sun. After they are dried they 
are skinned and then graded, that is, separated according 
to size and quality and placed in sacks for shipment. Some 
of the coffee is roasted before it leaves Brazil, but most of 
it is shipped without roasting. 





THE EASTERN HIGHLAND REGION OF SOUTH AMERICA 123 

This coffee region is one of the largest and most important 
m the world. The wharves at Rio Janeiro and at Santos 
are covered at times with immense piles of coffee sacks 
awaiting vessels to carry them to other parts of the world. 
A very large part of the coffee sent from Brazil comes to the 
United States. The people of the United States are the 
gi eatest coffee drinkers in the world. Since no coffee can 
be raised in our country more of it is imported than of 


Rio Janeiro, showing Sugar Loaf Rock 

almost any other foodstuff. Coffee is one of the chief 
exports of Brazil and in several of the states of that country 
the people are entirely engaged in the coffee industry. 

The city of Rio Janeiro is very beautiful and has an 
excellent harbor. Besides being the capital of Brazil it is 
one of the world’s chief coffee ports. 

The people of Brazil are slightly different from their 
neighbors in the other South American republics. The 
original settlers of Brazil were from Portugal, and Portu- 





124 


SOUTH AMERICA 


guese is the language of the Brazilians. Brazil won its 
independence at about the same time as the other South 
American countries won theirs. Then for a time it was an 
empire with an emperor named Dom Pedro. Now it is a 
republic with a government on the same plan as ours. 

As we have learned, part of Brazil is in the great 
central plain of South America. This plain region is a 
cattle country. On the grassy Pampas, as these plains are 
called, there are ranches with thousands of acres of land 
and thousands of cattle. Here and in the neighboring 
country of Argentina is the same sort of cowboy life that 
once was found in the plains region of the United States. 
The plains are dry and covered with tall grass which affords 
excellent pasture. While the climate is not hot and steamy 
like that of the Amazon valley, yet it is warm enough for 
the cattle to be left out of doors the year round. Cattle 
raising is one of the growing industries of Brazil. 


CHAPTER XV 


COMPARISON OF SOUTH AMERICA WITH NORTH 
AMERICA 

The southern grand division of our continent is like the 
northern one in the general character of its surface. Both 
have their eastern highlands, their central plain region, 
their western highlands. In both, the western highland 
towers far above the eastern mountains. In both the 
central plain is drained by great river systems. The differ¬ 
ences between the surfaces of the two grand divisions are 
chiefly in the relative directions of drainage, and height 
and length of mountain systems. The eastern highland 
in North America is higher and longer than that of South 
America. The North American central plain is drained 
by two great river systems, one flowing north, the other 
flowing south, while the South American central plain is 
drained by three river systems, all flowing eastward. 

Both grand divisions extend from the Torrid Zone 
through the Temperate Zones. In North America the wider, 
larger part is in the North Temperate Zone, while in South 
America the greater part is in the Torrid Zone. But both 
have the same range of differences in climate. 

The natural resources of both grand divisions are similar. 
In the mountains of both there are rich mines of metal. 
Both have large forest areas, North America’s principal 
forests being of the evergreen and hardwood trees of the 
Temperate Zone, South America’s the heavy mahogany, 
ebony and dye woods of the equatorial regions. Both have 

• 125 



NORTH fOLE 


St. Michael 


/ \ 

muds on 


GreatSla, 


^Winnipeg 


; w Orleanf 


CAlifor" 


LoriJa St 


•I Tampico 

Mexico 
. .. yiVVcra Cruz, 


Manzanilli 


Acapulco 


' s \ 


& V- 


y O 


o q 


* vSt 5 ' ifax ^ 
'”vVtn° va 
/^^ ctsabie \ 

gc w c° d 

,-TotlT ^Y 






% $h\laAeVv'»* 

J&rtdDgW* ^ 


,,,end oo/ no 


7 




FUJRlOh 7 

\ \ •*'^b*** WN 


<"/ C” , jaMAI£* B^po gp-y 

v haiT 

J f * b $ a y 

CEXTJtyX A 

^wiekica. y ^ ■ ' 

\ (vi-Mcaniffua .** 


« C 


NORTH 

AMERICA 


Scale of Miles 



^ 


V 


















J$E A 

•^Cape 

Gallinas^ 


'Maroaj'i 


[aracaibo QaracaS 

o Lake _ 

P" » . Anoco RM f . 


v/WtsP^)} 


>v x 

#s& 

¥pa rct ' Mt 


EQUATOR 


Manaos 


|ujo>o 


G«a c l u 
iut/ »•! 

Quaquj 

Cape ( 

j a nco\ 


, RoA v * e ( 
naml)uoo 


'IAMOND 

District, 


Cuyaba r| 




Asuncio; 


Cordoya 


• Mf. ** 

Aconcagua 


Rosario 


Montevideo 


Buenos Aires" 

Plata 


CHlt -06 

ISUA N ° 


f Gulf of 
*’t. Georg* 


O 

C TRINIDAD 
ISLAND 


— 


, 6 nn® 


s + V8 of 

« tuer 

"•* A 1 * 


Callao 


Santos 




CoVijo 

'of'cAPB'CORR 


ro 


Blumenau 


Valpara ' 90 

Banting 


SOUTH 
AMERICA 

Scale of Miles 


R S-:\ 

c (?&a O-i . M .<V FALKLAND 

iJAHw-Ss. Z£2tr ISLANDS 

,\^ Strait of 

Btr ai, „°\, ^Magellan 

HagW an YQ 5 ^,W 6 ^ DEL fuEG0 

< *"'^>aCape Horn 


Scale of 





















128 


SOUTH AMERICA 


large areas of agricultural land where food for millions of 
people can be raised. North America’s resources are 
developed to a much greater extent than those of South 
America. The chief reason for South America’s back¬ 
wardness in development is found in the greater geographical 
difficulties found there. The Andes Mountains are higher, 
more rugged and their mineral deposits much harder to 



reach than those in our Rocky Mountains. The South 
American forest region lies chiefly in the extremely hot, 
moist valleys of the Orinoco and the Amazon, where white 
men can scarcely live. The greater part of South America 
has the steamy, lazy climate of the Torrid Zone, which 
makes men’s minds and bodies duller and slower than they 
are in the cool air of the temperate regions. 

South America can probably never be a great manufac¬ 
turing country. There are no rich deposits of coal for fuel. 


















COMPARISON OF SOUTH AMERICA WITH NORTH AMERICA 129 







































































































































































































































130 


SOUTH AMERICA 


or iron for machinery, such as we find in our northern grand 
division. There are few streams in South America of the 
kind to furnish water power for factories or electric dynamos. 

A second important reason is found in the differences 
of the people of the two grand divisions. The original 
settlers of North America were people from the cooler 
northern countries of Europe. They were people who 
were used to hard physical work and to the keen cool winds 
of the north. They were just the right kind of people 
to clear forests, fight savages and build up towns. The 
original settlers of South America came from the southern 
countries of Europe where the warm climate makes the 
people.less energetic, more pleasure loving, and not so well 
fitted for pioneer life. 

In our dealings with South American people we must 
remember that their language and customs come from their 
forefathers who came from Spain and Portugal, just as our 
language and customs come from our forefathers who came 
from England and the other countries of North Europe. 
We also want to keep in mind the fact that South American 
countries are comparatively new. They are going through 
to-day much the same period of development that our 
country went through in the pioneer days of the West. 
Most of the countries are doing their best to overcome their 
geographical difficulties and become great, civilized nations. 
Some of them, particularly Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, 
have taken great forward steps within the past few years. 
The trade between the people of the United States and their 
South American cousins is constantly increasing. Let us 
hope that understanding and friendship between us and 
them will increase at the same time, so that no misunder¬ 
standings will ever come to make enemies of those who 
should be friends. 












































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